


and as he fell (you walked away)

by Teahound



Series: soldiers and spirits [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory I'm definitely not making up as I go, Coming to the aid of your friend/enemy, Creepy, Dramatic Battles, Except sweatshirts still exist because I like them, Found Family, Gen, Hugs all the hugs, It's spooky season so I'm gonna write some spooky manhunt, Local cryptid makes some friends, Loneliness, Minecraft Manhunt, No shipping, Obligatory Beach Episode, Platonic Cuddling, Sharing a Bed, Stargazing, Swordfighting, Taking care of your injured friends, Warning for some blood and gore, Wholesome Friendship, apple picking, betrayals and dramatic reveals for fun, cool scars, dark forests, lots and lots of angst, minecraft manhunt but make it fantasy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26435530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teahound/pseuds/Teahound
Summary: Once upon a time, there were three hunters.They were good at what they did. If you wanted something-- or better yet, someone-- found, discovered, or destroyed, they were the people you asked. They didn’t have much to their name, besides a formidable reputation, but they were a team, and that was enough for them.Once upon a time, there was a king in the forest.He wore a mask, but it didn’t matter. That deep in the forest, in a hidden fortress, buried behind leaves and monsters and broken stone, no one could see his face anyway. He had been there a very long time, and he was alone.Being a king can be a very lonely thing.So one day, the king left the fortress.A Minecraft manhunt AU, with a fantasy twist. Dream is a cryptid, and Hunters are idiots.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Darryl Noveschosch & Sapnap, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Darryl Noveschosch & Sapnap
Series: soldiers and spirits [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984312
Comments: 453
Kudos: 1502





	1. Prologue

Once upon a time, there were three hunters. 

They were good at what they did. If you wanted something-- or better yet, someone-- found, discovered, or destroyed, they were the people you asked. They didn’t have much to their name, besides a formidable reputation, but they were a team, and that was enough for them. 

Once upon a time, there was a king in the forest. 

He wore a mask, but it didn’t matter. That deep in the forest, in a hidden fortress, buried behind leaves and monsters and broken stone, no one could see his face anyway. He had been there a very long time, and he was alone. 

Being a king can be a very lonely thing.  
So one day, the king left the fortress. 

And once upon a time, there was another--- a cloaked figure who entered the bar where the hunters were sitting. They didn’t see him, but he was watching, and he smiled.


	2. The Mission

“I got drinks” 

Bad slid the mugs across the table to where George and Sapnap, his two friends and fellow hunters, were in the middle of some intense discussion about the color green. 

Sapnap grabbed the mug without looking up, “Thanks, Dad.”

George snorted, “Did you just call him Dad?” 

“Shut up George.” 

Bad rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, sipping his drink and watching his friends bicker. They definitely didn’t look much like trained mercenaries at the moment; George’s goggles were lopsided on his head and Sapnap had already managed to spill his drink on his shirt. They were both very obviously idiots, but Bad loved them for it. 

“Excuse me,” said a deep voice, directly behind him.

Bad felt a chill on the back of his neck. He turned in his chair, motioning for Sapnap and George to stop arguing and pay attention. He didn’t need to bother. The cold sensation that seemed to radiate out from the stranger had already silenced them. He was tall, but there wasn’t much more to say about him, because all his features were hidden by a dark red cloak, a hood shielding his face buried in folds of cloth. 

“Mind if I sit?” the figure didn’t wait for an answer, just slid into the chair between Sapnap and Bad. “I believe you’re the Three Muffenteers?” 

George said “Absolutely not,” at the same time Bad said, “Yes we are!” 

The figure drew a crumpled poster from a fold of his robe and placed it on the table. It showed a rough drawing of three figures bearing swords-- one with a dark hoodie and a halo, one with a headband and one with a rather awkward pair of goggles. The top of the poster identified them in cramped letters as “The Muffinteers! They can find anything and anyone! And maybe kill them! (if you want us to)”

Sapnap groaned. “Bad, we agreed we weren’t going to be the muffinteers.” 

“Yeah, I did not approve of this.” George looked annoyed, too. “I can’t believe you put up posters without asking us.”

Bad crossed his arms defensively. “Well, it’s not like you had any better ideas! We needed the advertising.” he turned to the figure/person/something. “I guess we might not be the Muffinteers, but we are the people you’re looking for. Are you looking for an item?”

“Someone?” George suggested. 

“No,” the Figure shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “Not an item, or someone. A something.” 

He had their attention now. They turned to him, questioning. “So,” Sapnap prompted. “What is it?” 

“Have you ever been in the Forest before?” 

They shook their heads. Their work had brought them to its fringes before but for the most part, they stayed within the cities and plains. But they had seen the dark trees that rose up at the border of the city where they now stayed. 

“Then you’ve never heard of Dream.” 

“Tell us,” George said. They were all as curious now as they had been nervous a moment before.

“Dream is a legend. He’s a monster. He’s the shadow that haunts the forest. He’s the reason no one travels through the woods.”  


Bad frowned. “And you want us to kill...him? It?”

“If you can.” 

“That’s a pretty tall order.” George finally said, leaning back in his chair. “Find and kill a...something in a forest. What’s in it for us?” 

The Figure reached again into his cloak and produced a small sack, which he tossed across the table. Bad stared. If that sack had gold in it, it was already more than they’d made in the last month. 

“This is a down payment.” the Figure said. “Double this if you succeed. And you’ll be legends yourselves.”

“Deal.” Sapnap snatched up the bag. “George? Bad?” 

They nodded in agreement. The money was good, after all, but Bad knew that they also couldn’t resist the idea of a challenge. A chance, perhaps, to become legends. 

George held out a hand. “We can’t do anything, unfortunately, if you don’t have something we can use to track… Dream.” 

With a smooth motion, the Figure placed a small shard of something that resembled porcelain into George's hand.”

“What’s that?” Bad asked, leaning forward to look at the splinter. 

“It’s a piece of his mask.” the Figure stood, “Are we done here?”

“Wait.” Sapnap stood too. “We need something from you too. For insurance. If you try and skip town before paying us, we should be able to find you.”

“Fair enough.” the Figure hesitated before tearing off a small piece of the dark red robe and passing it over. “Gentlemen,” he nodded at them. “Good luck.” He glided out the door. 

“Well.” said Bad. 

George had already pulled out his compass. He slid the tiny shard into the mechanism in the back, and for a minute they listened to it tick, as it searched for its target. Finally, it paused and swung east, a direct line pointed towards the forest. 

“Are we ready?” Sapnap drained the rest of his drink and grinned. “Let’s go find a forest monster.”


	3. The Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Off they go into the forest. There may not be dragons, but here be Dream. 
> 
> TW: swearing and some blood

Geoge shivered. He should have brought a sweater. It was only early autumn, but here in the forest, the shadows stretched long, and dark and cold. The metal of the compass in his hand felt frigid, as it ticked quietly, still pointed eastward. 

“This,” Sapnap said loudly, “is fucking boring.” 

“Language!” Bad snapped impatiently. “Besides, you said that already, Sappynap.” 

George sighed and shifted the pack on his back, which was growing more and more uncomfortable. They had been walking most of the day, and now, as the air grew colder with the promise of approaching night, the three hunters were officially on each other’s last nerve. 

Bad pushed his glasses farther up his nose, looking up at the sky, which was a faint pink. A silhouette of a few stray bats fluttered above their heads. “We should start setting up camp. It’s going to be night soon.” 

“You think it’s going to take us much longer?” Sapnap drew his sword and started stabbing at the dirt. “What if we can find this guy tonight? We should just keep going.” 

The trees loomed overhead, the dark shadows of the canopy fading into the darkening sky. Soon mobs would emerge. The three of them wouldn’t have too much of an issue if they stuck together, but it would be annoying to deal with. George had to agree with Sapnap-- he didn’t want to stay in this creepy forest a moment longer if he could help it. 

“Let’s keep going just a few more minutes,” he said finally, giving the compass an experimental shake. “And if nothing happens, we can--” he paused suddenly, staring down at the metal circle in his hand. “Guys?”

Bad peered over his shoulder, at the little red needle, which was spinning in a circle, around and around. “Is it broken?” 

Sapnap pulled the shield off his back and held it in front of him, his posture defensive. “It’s broken- or we’ve found him.” They stared at the trees, which looked like shadowed stains across the landscape. There was no sign of another living creature. “Bad, we need light.” 

“Oh, right, right.” Bad dropped to the forest floor and began lighting a torch. George paced, back and forth, watching the compass. Back and forth. Yes, there was the spot. The compass spun uselessly in space.  
“Maybe he’s below us?” there was a crackle as Bad lifted up the torch, illuminating the patch of trees and wet grass. “There could be a cave system.”

But George’s eyes followed the rising smoke of the torch, up, up, to where the firelight reflected off a porcelain mask, a simple, staring smile, looking down at him from the branches of the oak tree. He stumbled backward into Bad, who drew his sword. 

“Hell. I- I think we found him.”

“No kidding.” Sapnap snapped, taking up an offensive position. The figure in the tree just stared. It was dressed in something that blended into the dark shadows of the forest. The face was hidden by a mask, chipped on one side, smiling, smiling. 

“Are you Dream?” Bad asked. 

Dream cocked his head to the side. 

“George,” Sapnap breathed, but the hunter had already drawn his crossbow. A clean shot at the masked figure, while he was distracted by Bad, was their best chance. Quietly, quietly, he loaded the bow, peering gently upwards. 

He squeezed the trigger. 

Dream leapt from the tree. The arrow whistled through space where he’d been only a moment before. 

George tried to load the crossbow again, but it was too late; the masked figure was already almost on top of Bad, who was yelling. 

The torch went out, and the darkness was overwhelming. 

Bad stumbled backward as Dream launched himself downwards, towards him, with a single motion knocking the torch to the ground, where it died with a fizzling sound. He blinked, trying to get his bearings, just as Dream sent him reeling to the ground. The sword fell from his hand, and Bad scrambled for it desperately, his fingers brushing against the hilt, just as he saw Dream bend over and scoop it up with unnatural speed. 

“Get AWAY from him!” Sapnap roared, dashing forward, his blade meeting Dream’s with a crash. George reloaded his crossbow, looking for an opening. There! Dream moved back for just a moment, and George took advantage of it to fire, squinting in the darkness, watching with horror as the figure simply sidestepped the bolt without looking. 

He wasn’t human. 

Sapnap jolted backward with a yelp of pain as Dream’s blade sliced across his shoulder, leaving a stinging cut. 

It had been a long time since someone had drawn first blood on him.

Bad stumbled for the torch as Sapnap was pushed farther and farther away, Dream now on the offensive, pushing him back into the forest, out of their sight. “George!” he shouted. 

“I know, I’m coming!” George drew his sword, just as the torch came back to life. And, between the clashing of swords, they heard a rattling. “Bad, look out, skeletons!” 

Bad lifted his shield in the nick of time, an arrow inches away from his face. Now he could see four or five of them, coming through the shadows of the trees, as if they had been summoned. 

Dream and Sapnap were nowhere to be seen. 

***********

Sapnap felt like he could barely breathe. He, George, and Bad had been doing this for months. He’d been fighting for what sometimes felt like his entire life. He was good. He knew he was good.

Dream was better. 

The masked man pushed him back, farther and farther away into the forest, farther and farther away from his friends. He dodged as Dream’s blade came spinning towards him, nearly cutting across his face, and Sapnap parried, trying to find an opening, circle around, anything that would give him the upper hand. All he needed was an unguarded moment. 

Dream found his moment first, slashing wildly, making Sapanap stumble backward and trip on a tree root, hidden by the darkness. He went sprawling to the ground on his back, with a gasp, the wind knocked out of him. He felt the terrible pressure of Dream’s boot on his chest. 

“Bad! George!” 

The mask leered down at him. 

“Help!” 

*****

Another arrow thudded into Bad’s shield, just as George sent another crossbow bolt through the darkness, scattering a skeleton into a disassembled mound of bones. “Bad! We have to go after Sapnap!” 

“Cover me!” Bad drew his sword, as George fired another arrow into an approaching skeleton. Together they pushed through the remaining mobs. An arrow grazed George's shoulder, and he winced, watching blood stain his blue shirt. That has been too close for comfort. With a quick spin of his blade, Bad dispatched the final skeleton. “You okay George?”

George nodded. “It’s just a scratch,” he said quickly, giving the wound an experimental poke. “I’m sure--”

He looked up again. Bad was gone. 

“Bad?” 

Nothing.

“Sapnap?” 

Nothing.

“Hello? Guys?” 

There was a loud crashing sound somewhere to his right. George drew his sword and ran. Branches and cobwebs brushing against his face. Somewhere in the near distance, he heard a shout that sounded familiar. And then silence. 

Suddenly he tripped over something-- no-- someone. Sapnap, lying on the ground, eyes shut. “Oh, fuck, Nick. Wake up!” George searched for a pulse, breathing a heavy sigh of relief when Sapnap opened his eyes, coughing, and stared at him, with something akin to horror on his face.

No, not at him. 

Behind him? 

He turned. Standing so near George could touch him, the light from the lantern glancing against the smooth surface of the mask, was Dream. 

“Run.” Sapnap whispered. “George, run!” 

George knelt there, frozen. Dream tilted his head. Was there even a face beneath that mask? 

_“Yes,”_ Dream said. His voice was the low, lilting sing-song of a madman. _“Run, Georgie.”_

_You can’t abandon your friend,_ part of him said. _Where is Bad?_ a darker voice whispered. 

“RUN!” Dream was laughing. 

George ran. It felt like the forest was swallowing him whole. His hands were shaking. His lungs felt like they were exploding. Behind him, he heard the study beat of Dream’s feet against the forest floor. He turned, glancing back at the figure, closing in, closer, closer, closer. 

His foot tripped against something, and his pitched forward, his head meeting a rock with a burst of heat and pain. 

The darkness took him completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to my laptop for correcting Sapnap to Subpoena every damn time. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! The kudos and kind comments make my day. I've never posted a lot of my writing online before, so this is all very encouraging. :-) 
> 
> Thanks to @thatsnotgreatryan for being my beta.
> 
> The next chapter shouldn't be too far off! Plot twists ahead!


	4. The Glade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First off, thank you so much to everyone who left a kudos, a comment, or just stopped by to read. It puts a spring in my step all day to wake up to your kind words. I genuinely did not expect such a kind response to my story, and I'm blown away.
> 
> This chapter is a lot longer, and a bit of a tone change. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> TW: Swearing

George blinked, squinting. It was bright, too bright. He closed his eyes again, trying to remember. What had happened? He’d gone into the forest with Sapnap and Bad, and--

A jolt of pain shot through his skull, bringing him solidly back to reality. Dream. He must have hit his head. He groaned, his hand exploring upwards to a linen bandage wrapped around his skull. 

“How are you feeling?” said a voice, so near to him that George started nervously. “Can you open your eyes?” 

George tried for a moment, catching sight of something yellow, then shut them again. “It’s very bright.” 

“You probably have a concussion.” the voice was male, nothing out of the ordinary, friendly and completely unfamiliar. “I’ll close the curtains.” 

The light on the back of his eyelids receded and George blinked again, trying to understand what he was seeing. He was sitting on a bed, a rough brown coverlet wrapped around him, looking into a square room. More of a cabin, really. Herbs and dried meats hung against one wall, a crossbow was mounted by the door, and a fireplace burned quietly. A figure, wearing a patched yellowy sweatshirt, was puttering around by the oven. There was a smell of fresh bread and something frying in butter. 

“Hello?” George asked tentatively. Perhaps the gaps in his memory were bigger than he’d thought. 

The figure by the oven straightened and turned his direction. He had sandy hair and yellow eyes, a bit of stubble growing on his chin, and a smattering of freckles across his nose. He couldn’t be much more than twenty, George thought. “Hello. I’m glad you’re awake.” 

“Where am I?” 

“Relax.” he walked over to the bedside, hands checking over the bandages wrapped around George’s head. “You’re at my place. There isn't’ anything to worry about.” 

George tried to sit up, wincing a bit. His head was sore and his shoulder stung. He tugged back the sleeve and saw that the shoulder had been bandaged too. He slumped back, relieved momentarily. Wherever he was, he seemed to be safe. “I’m George.”

“Clay.” The young man smiled shyly and offered a hand. They shook. 

“Where are– Have you seen my friends? Sapnap and Bad?”

“They’re right outside. They’re in much better shape than you are.” Clay returned to the oven and pulled out a loaf of crusty bread. “You hit your head hard.”

The door swung open slowly, letting in a burst of sunlight, and Bad’s head poked through. “Clay is George…” he caught sight of George sitting up in bed, and let out a shout of joy. “George, you’re awake! Sapnap!” 

The two of them came bounding through the door to crowd around the bed, squeezing him in tight hugs. 

“Okay, okay you guys,” George said, grinning despite himself. He looked them over, searching for any sign of injury. Sapnap had a bandage around his arm and Bad’s glasses were cracked, but they seemed well enough. “I’m alright, really, it’s just a headache. What-- what happened?” 

Sapnap and Bad shared a long glance. They’d already been talking. “Dream,” Sapnap said finally, sitting on the edge of the bed. “He’s good. If it hadn’t been for Clay--”

“I did nothing.” Clay said quickly. “Breakfast is ready, by the way.” He offered George a simple wooden plate heaped with bread, fried mushrooms, and eggs. It smelled incredible. Sapnap and Bad reached for their own plates eagerly, and for a moment there wasn’t a sound except for contented chewing. 

Bad spoke around a mouthful of food. “Nothing? Are you kidding? You patched us up, you found George, you invited us into your house, and now you’re making us breakfast.”

Clay shrugged. “Not many people come to the forest. I was happy to help out.” 

“You live in the forest?” George asked. The interior of the house made more sense now. He could see tools for farming and hunting, fur pelts, and dried mushrooms in woven baskets. It was very homey. “Alone?”

“I’ve been here most of my life. It’s not so bad.” Clay turned to Sapnap, who had somehow already wolfed down his entire breakfast in minutes. “Why are you in the forest? You said you were...mercenaries of some sort? Not to be insulting, but you don’t exactly look like it.”

“Hunters,” Sapnap corrected. “But yeah, same difference. I’m the brawn, George is the brain, Bad’s the mom.”

“Aww, thank Sap,” Bad said, his face completely free of sarcasm. “Yeah, we’re looking for something in the forest. Someone called Dream? Have you heard of him?”

“Someone...hired you to hunt Dream?” Clay went completely still. 

“You know him?” 

Clay swallowed and began collecting their dirty plates. “Dream’s like...the guardian of this forest. He’s not exactly human I don’t think. And, no, I don’t know him. I don’t think anyone can.” 

Sapnap frowned. “But can he be killed?”

“I don’t know.” Clay paused, his back toward them, staring out the window. “I don’t think you should try though. I don’t think he wants to hurt people. I don’t think he wants to be hunted though.” 

A long silence filled the room. George glanced over at Bad, who was polishing his glasses. Sapnap was rubbing his bandaged arm meditatively.

They’d only been together like this a few months, but they had already fallen to a comfortable routine. Get a job, get the job done, whatever it took, get paid, move to another town before someone came looking for them. They were a team, and more importantly, they were family now. But something about this mission felt different. It was frightening and George was torn. Last night had been the closest they’d come to death and the thought of Sapnap lying on the ground, eyes closed, Bad missing, made George feel panicked still. 

But… the money the cloaked figure had promised would be enough for a life beyond the hunt. Enough to pay off Sapnap’s debts. Enough to bribe an official into writing George a notice of exemption. Enough to get them a little place somewhere, with a garden and maybe a cat. Enough to launch their reputation into legend. 

He met his friends’ eyes, and he could see that they were thinking the same thing. “We can’t stop now,” he said finally. “We’ve never given up on a hunt before. We just have to be smarter.”

“We have to take a break,” Bad said quietly. “You’ve got a concussion, George. At least a few more days for rest. Three at least.” 

Sapnap’s hands drummed impatiently against his leg. “We may have to return to town. I don’t like the idea of staying in the forest longer than we have too. Especially not with George injured.” 

“I’ll be fine,” George said. “If you gave me one of the potions of healing--”

“Those are for emergencies only,” Bad said crisply. 

Clay turned back to them. His face was difficult to read. “You could stay here until you’re ready to go. I don’t mind.”

“We don’t want to bother you.”

“You wouldn’t be. I don’t– not many people come to the forest. I’d appreciate the company.”

The hunters looked at one another, a quick conversation happening in the space between words. 

“Thank you,” George said. “We’ll stay.” 

******

The rest of the day, Bad confined George to his bed, and then he and Sapnap decided to fix Clay’s roof, which was apparently leaky, while the man in question went to hunt dinner for them. The pounding did nothing good for his head, but George appreciated the time alone to think. Cautiously he climbed out of bed and searched for his pack, which had been stuffed halfway under the bed. There, tucked in a front pocket was his compass. The glass was cracked, but it was otherwise unharmed. He slid the piece of porcelain out of the back of the mechanism and balanced it thoughtfully in his hand. All too well he remembered the stiff staring smile of the chipped mask Dream wore. The thought made him shiver. 

They were crazy to keep trying. In his mind’s eye, George saw Dream sidestep that arrow with an unnatural agility. Slowly he returned the porcelain chip to the compass and watched as the needle swung gently North, moving slightly every few minutes. Somewhere out there, Dream was stalking the forest, perhaps waiting for them to return.

George put the compass back in his pack and went to sleep. 

******

They didn’t wake him up for dinner, and George awoke to a dark and empty house, with voices echoing from somewhere above him. He crept out of the bed and opened the door. The evening air washed over him, refreshingly cool. “Hello?”

“George!” he turned and saw Sapnap, Bad, and Clay lying on the newly patched roof, waving down at him. “Come up!”

He found the ladder leaning against the side of the cottage and climbed up to meet them, sitting down beside Clay. From up here, he could see that the little cottage sat in the midst of a grassy clearing, the trees stretching away on all sides. A river was running briskly nearby, from the sound of it, and somewhere in the near distance, he thought he heard a cow. The entire place was bathed in starlight; it looked a little enchanted.

George tilted his head back and stared up at the night sky. It was ablaze with stars. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said quietly. 

Clay nodded. “Bad told me you grew up in the city.” 

“You can’t see the stars there. Not stars like this. They look,” George reached out as if he could touch them; they looked so bright and close it might be possible, “they look like magic.” He turned to Clay, who was smiling wistfully upwards. “You must be used to it though.”

“I guess I am. I’d like to see a city, though.”

“Have you really never left the forest?” 

Clay shook his head. He didn’t look sad, exactly, George thought. Just a little empty. 

********

Bad laid a hand on an enormous oak tree. He could almost feel it growing, it was so vibrant with life. The entire forest felt that way, so alive it was shouting. Bad was familiar with the rhythms in life and death in a way that, if he’d lived a different life, would have destined him for a career as a cleric. But, out here in the woods, it was only good for patching up his friends and feeling trees grow. Not that he was complaining.

“It’s so quiet out here,” he said to Clay. “I would have thought there would at least be birds or something.”

Clay nodded thoughtfully. The forester had agreed to show Bad his personal routes through the forest that morning, while Sapnap and George were assigned to housekeeping duties. 

If they were going to walk away from their next encounter with Dream, they had to be prepared. Knowing the terrain was only the beginning. 

“It’s because of us,” Clay explained. “Things in this forest are shy. They’re avoiding us.”

“Me, you mean,” Bad said, because he somehow was certain that Clay could walk through this forest without disturbing the insects. Even now, as he came to stand beside Bad beneath the shadow of the old oak, he glided across the moss with silent footsteps, his green hoodie the same color as the sunlight through the oak leaves. 

Clay didn’t acknowledge his addition, just motioned the way forward. “The pond is ahead of us, only about a mile. It’s a good place for fishing, and if you need a place to camp, it’s fairly safe. The mobs don’t often go there, because of the ruins.”

“What ruins?” 

Clay stiffened and then pretended he hadn’t. Bad watched him out of the corner of his eye. “It’s just some old ruins. They’re practically the center of the forest, but you don’t want to go there. There are a lot of old traps and things.”

Bad was good at life and death, and he was also good at people. He knew Clay was lying. About what? “Could it have something to do with Dream?” 

“I don’t know.” 

************

It was raining, which meant no stars. Instead, it meant a cozy fire and cups of hot tea. The three hunters and Clay huddled in blankets on the bed, sitting in a tight circle, telling stories. 

“What do you know about spirits?” Clay asked. 

“Not much,” George admitted. 

Sapnap scoffed. “They’re mythology, George, you’re not missing out, it’s bullshit.” 

“Oh my--language, Nick! And anyway, that’s not entirely true,” Bad said earnestly looking up from his mug. “Spirits are real. Some of them anyway. They’re tied to places, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Clay laced his fingers together, looking earnestly at the small group. “Places that mean something. It used to be that there were spirits for rivers and forests and plains, but now there are different ones. Spirits for cities and towns and roads too. A lot of the first spirits are gone.”

“Is that what Dream is?” George asked softly. “Is he the spirit of this forest?” 

Clay looked at him. “I don’t know.” 

*******

They fell asleep in a pile on the tiny bed. It would have been more convenient if the hunters had spread out their bedrolls on the floor, but they somehow had forgotten. Sapnap was a huddle at the end of the bed, like a kitten, somehow tiny in sleep. Bad was squished between George and Clay, an arm around both. The sound George’s quiet breathing, of Clay’s breathy snoring, of Sapnap mumbling to himself in his sleep, was soothing. In the weeks that he and his friends had been together, Bad had almost forgotten what it was like being alone. He was pretty sure the others felt the same. 

Cautiously, trying not to disturb his sleeping friends, Bad wrapped his hands around Clay’s wrist, and stayed quiet, trying to understand who this lonely person was. 

Clay felt like the oak tree. Old, and alive and somehow a little hollowed out, like the core was gone, and there was little left but bark and greenery. He curled around Clay’s sleeping form like a hug could be the cure for emptiness.

******

“Have you killed people?” Clay asked.

Sapnap looked at him surprised, his hands covered with flour and sticky with the dough he’d been kneading. George and Bad’s voices drifted in through the open door, where they were packing the bags the hunters had brought. “Yeah, I guess. Why d’you ask?”

“You seem kind of young to kill people, that’s all.” Clay stared down at the bowl of batter in his hands, absentmindedly adding a handful of chopped nuts to the mixture. “Especially as a job.”

“We have to earn a living somehow,” Sapnap said with a shrug, but Clay’s words were unsettling. “Life gets rough outside the forest.” He went back to kneading the bread.

“Is it easy for you? To kill people I mean.”

He considered it. In the two months since he’d begun his new line of mercenary work, he hadn’t stopped to think, and that surprised him. “Well, if I had to choose between them and me, I’d rather it be them. But--” he paused, “I guess it’s easier than it should be. And we don’t just kill people. We find people's locations or look for lost objects. Most of our hunts don’t involve, well, murder.” 

“This one does.” Clay said evenly, his eyes still on his hands. 

Sapnap stared at him wonderingly. “You really don’t want us to go after him, do you?” 

Clay looked up, and Sapnap wished he wasn’t so hard to read. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

********

“This feels like such a terrible idea, honestly. Going back out there.” Bad said. He shook the crumbs out of his bedroll and rolled it up again, stowing it in his pack. 

George was consulting a roughly sketched map of the forest, but he nodded as Bad spoke. “If I didn’t think the money was worth it, I would have wanted to leave after that night.” 

“Is it worth it? Even with the money?”

“Yes,” George said, and he was certain. “Bad, Nick and I can’t keep running forever. Sooner or later someone will catch up with us. We have to resolve things before one of us gets caught.” He turned to Bad, repentant. “I know you didn’t ask for any of this when you joined us.”

Bad set down his pack and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I knew exactly what I was doing when I met you two. You’re my friends. I don’t want either of you to get hurt. And that means keeping Sapnap out of prison, you out of the army, and all of us out of trouble.”

“We don’t deserve you.” 

Bad pulled him into a hug, and George smiled despite his headache and the mounting fear of the future. “I love you too. Now, let’s go get Dream and get our money.” 

*******

They left the next morning. Clay stood in the doorway, watching as they pulled on their packs, laughing loudly, the morning sun illuminating the clearing. Surrounded by the bright green grass and the fall wildflowers, they looked like a painting. 

“Don’t go,” he said, but he said it too quietly for them to hear. He stepped out the door and offered his hand to George who took it and pulled him into a hug instead of a handshake. Bad and Sapnap joined it, and for a moment it was like they were filling a hole in his chest. 

George pulled away and smiled widely. “We’ll be back soon,” he said as if he’d heard Clay speaking.

“Thank you.” Bad smiled warmly, adjusting his chipped classes. “You saved our lives, Clay. Not to mention your kindness letting us stay here.” 

“Yeah, thanks.” Sapnap clapped him on the back with a grin. “We’ll bring you Dream’s mask as a souvenir.” 

Clay didn’t know what to say. He only waved as they turned and walked into the forest, and slowly went back into the cabin, shutting the door behind him. 

His coat hung on the hook by the window, and he wrapped it around himself, trying to shake off the cold feeling that was working its way through his chest. From the inside pocket, he pulled out the mask, chipped on one side. 

Clay had not been afraid of anything in a long time. 

The thing was, Clay did not want to kill. At least, not this time. 

The thing was, Clay did not want to die.

He slipped the mask over his face, where it sat cool and familiar. He took a deep breath and felt his features settle into stillness. He opened the door, and sensed the forest around him, with him, comforting and calling.

Dream slipped into the shadows of the trees and disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Thank you everybody for over 100 notes! I did not think it was possible, but I'm blown away.  
> To celebrate I posted a "cover" I drew when I began the story. You can find it on my tumblr at https://tea-with-veth.tumblr.com/  
> And finally, if you haven't read Green&Gold by HognoseSnake, you're missing out. Hands down my favorite MCYT fic, and a huge fount of inspiration on every level. She deserves all the love!  
> Thanks again!


	5. The Mines

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're going on a Dream hunt, we're gonna catch a big one, we're not scared! (but they should be) 
> 
> TW: swearing, gore and injuries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHH thank you everyone for the kudos and comments on the last chapter! You're all so sweet and encouraging. I did not plan for this fic to be such an important part of my life, but having so much lovely feedback on my writing has transformed the last few weeks for the better! 
> 
> Yes, I have once again doubled the word count with this chapter. I do not seem to know when to stop, and I hope you enjoy the result.  
> Special thanks to thatsnotgreatryan and Anna for being my betas and super encouraging friends. 
> 
> Lots of love and tea for all of you wonderful people from your friendly neighborhood Teahound! 
> 
> P.S. Happy beginning of Autumn

“Okay,” George said. “Are you going to tell us what the plan is now?” 

Bad looked around, his fingertips brushing gentle against the bark of the passing trees as if he was in the midst of a conversation with them. The sunlight drifted through the branches, highlighting the first fall colors. “We’re going to the ruins.”

“I was under the impression that Clay said the ruins were dangerous,” Sapanap said, the curiosity in his voice obvious.

“He did. Which is why we’re going.” 

George glanced down at the compass, which was telling him that Dream was somewhere behind him. He blinked over his shoulder nervously. “You think Clay is hiding something?” 

“We all know he is,” Bad said quietly as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Clay knows a lot more than he’s letting on.”

“Shifty bastard,” Sapnap said darkly, using his sword to cut away at the underbrush. 

“Language!” 

The red needle on the compass was moving slowly to the right.

“And anyway, just because he’s not telling us everything doesn’t mean he’s not our friend. He still saved our lives, Sap, that means something.”

The red needle on the compass was still moving. George forced himself to look ahead instead of fixating on it. The pale mask danced tauntingly in the back of his head, reminding him precisely how close he’d come to death. It occurred to him that he had no idea what had happened after he’d hit his head on that rock. Had Clay come to drive Dream away? Had Bad or Sapnap found him? Had Dream simply left?

“You’re good at people,” George said finally. “What did you think of Clay?”

Bad offered him a hand, as their path began to steepen growing rockier as they moved upwards. “I trust him.” 

“And we trust your judgment.” 

Sapnap laughed snarkily, “Seems like a terrible idea to me, considering that Bad trusts us.”

“Hey, I’m perfectly trustworthy, unlike the debt dodg--” George paused, looked down. Dream was now ahead of them. “Hey, you two. Just a heads up, but Dream is circling us.” 

Sapnap moved into a defensive position, glancing nervously at the treetops. Bad frowned. “How far away do you think he is?”

“No idea honestly. It could be a long way off, he’s moving slowly. Just… be on the lookout.”

Bad nodded, thinking. “We’ll pass the pond in ten minutes or so, and from there we’ll be in more unknown territory. Be cautious. If we’re going to engage, we have to stay together.” 

*****

They passed the pond. They did not see Dream. Eventually, they stopped and ate lunch, a mixture of dried fruit and freshly baked bread from Clay. They still did not see Dream. Morning faded into early afternoon, the morning sun disappearing into clouds, leaving the forest a more somber tone. Sapnap walked in front, clearing away the underbrush, and occasionally leaving a marking on one of the old oaks so they could find their way back to the glade, and Clay's little cabin. They were all very much city boys, and their days with Clay had made that all the more apparent. George had to admit that he himself felt a little uncomfy without a neatly labeled map with street names and square blocks and landmarks that weren’t rocks or trees. 

Dream did not make an appearance. George kept checking the compass, watching as their quarry circled. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being preyed upon. Hadn’t they set out as Hunters? The wind grew uncomfortably cold. 

Still, no sign of Dream. Still, just a slowly turning needle, tauntingly making its way around the face of the compass. 

“George, look at this,” Bad said suddenly. He pointed ahead, where the trees were beginning to thin out a bit. There sat a square boulder covered in moss and decaying leaves. A boulder that looked more like an oversized brick. George took a step forward, past the stone. There were two more here, and a piece of something that looked like a pillar. 

“We found the ruins,” he said. “Or at least the beginning of them. So, now what?” 

_“Yes Georgie, now what?”_ The mimicking voice was high and sing-song. George turned back, the compass in his hand freezing.

There, lounging on one of the stones, was Dream. In the daylight, George could see he wore a coat that blended into the forest, with a deep hood. Unlike the night they’d met, however, a sword now sat loosely in Dream’s hands. The smiling mask peered back at them. 

How had he snuck up on them? 

“Hello,” Bad said, breathlessly. His hands were twitching toward his sword, but George had to admire how calm he looked. 

Sapnap was not there. 

“Last chance,” Dream whispered conspiratorially. “This is it.”

“Last chance for what?” Bad asked. He glanced at George, his unspoken orders offered and accepted. 

“Get out of my forest. Now.” 

“Or what, Muffinhead?” 

The figure sounded like it was stifling a laugh. George braced himself--

As Sapnap leapt to the top of the rock, his sword flashing downwards. Dream rolled out of the way, fast, but there was a long tear down the side of his coat, a spray of crimson. Without a sound, he tumbled off the rock and took off running into the forest. George half-heartedly sent a crossbow bolt after him, but as he’d expected Dream only stepped to the side and ran on. 

The hunters glanced at one another for only a moment. Then they went after him, weapons ready.

Dream was stupidly fast. While George kept on stumbling on roots and rocks and bushes that seemed to appear out of nowhere, the masked figure seemed completely unbothered by the rough terrain. His feet didn’t even make a sound against the underbrush. The Hunters, by contrast, were ridiculously loud. 

“He went this way!”

“Come on, come on!”

“Get him Sap!”

Bad pointed to the left and right with two fingers, and they obediently split away, trying to circle around Dream and trap him from three sides. This was their life, and now, on the chase, they knew exactly what they were doing. 

The compass in George’s hand pointed straight and true. His lungs were burning. There! A flash of yellow among the trees. Dream, running too. 

“Hey Dream!” Sapnap yelled from somewhere beyond him. George paused, pulling out his crossbow, firing two quick shots. 

Dream dodged, stumbled, slowed. And then Bad was almost on top of him, pushing him to the ground, his sword slashing downward. Dream blocked the blow with his sword, just barely, scrambling to his feet, just as Sapnap and George began to catch up. 

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Dream yelled, backing up slowly. 

“You wish,” Bad said, with a proud grin. George drew his sword. 

They stood for a moment, tense, waiting for someone to make a move. 

Dream suddenly darted straight for Sapnap, throwing out a first and catching him in the jaw, before pushing past and running into the forest again, dodging behind a tree as a crossbow bolt very nearly landed between his shoulder blades. 

They had been so close.

They began to run again, Dream only a few feet ahead. So close! 

“Come back Dream!” Sapnap shouted, as the yellow coat took a sharp turn to the right, and then---disappeared. George watched with horror as Sapnap stopped suddenly, arms spinning in space, balanced on the edge of a ravine. He caught the back of his friend’s shirt and pulled him back from the verge. 

Dream was almost at the bottom. He glanced up at them with that mocking smile and vanished somewhere to the right, a cave swallowing him

“Shit, dude,” George gasped, grabbing Sapnap’s arm. “That was too close.” 

Bad caught up, panting, his sword drawn. “Is he down there?” When they nodded he pulled a length of rope from his pack and began to secure it to the tree. “Everyone alright? Sap?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he nodded at George, taking the rope and throwing it down into the ravine. “Thanks.”

They slid down the rope and stared out at the cave entrance. George checked his compass. Bad produced some torches. 

“This seems like a terrible idea,” Sapnap volunteered. 

George grinned. “For the money.”

“For the money.” 

They plunged into the cave. George glanced down at the ground and something glinted back up at him. Rails, halfway buried in soil. “We’ve found an old mine.”

Their torches swept back and forth, sending ominous shadows dancing across the walls. A long, narrow tunnel stretched ahead of them, punctuated by heavy oaken support beams and the occasional drop deep into the recesses of the cavern. The compass pointed straight ahead, and there was a sound in the distance, though George could not have told if it was footsteps or laughter. They advanced down the tunnel. 

“There should be more mobs,” Sapnap said. “It’s dark down here.” 

Bad frowned, staring into the distance. “Clay said they avoid the ruins. Maybe that’s why.” 

They crept forward. Every twenty feet or so a mineshaft opened up at their feet, and they would have to jump over, avoiding staring down at the yawning drop beneath them. The tunnels began to branch out on either side. 

There was no sign of Dream. Again. 

“Come here Dreamie!” George yelled, his voice echoing against stone. His heart pounded against his ribs. 

Sapnap snorted, bracing himself and making the jump across one of the mineshafts. “Yeah, Dream, we just want to talk!” 

“I wonder why he’s called Dream?” Bad asked, raising his torch a little higher, “Because-- Oh!” 

There was a flash of color at the end of the tunnel, and a sudden pounding of footsteps. 

The hunters began to run, Bad in the lead, faster, faster. Dream was ahead, but barely now. Bad was closing in, swinging with his sword, Dream, leaping over one of the mineshafts, Bad following with an enormous bound---

Bad’s foot slipped on the edge-

He fell backward, out of sight, a scream leaving his lips--

There was a hiccuping thud as his body disappeared from sight. 

Someone screamed. Dream’s footsteps stuttered, turning back. 

Here, boxed in by narrow walls, Dream couldn’t dodge. The rage in George’s mind was clarifying, sharpening, pointed as the arrow flung from his crossbow. 

Dream threw himself to the side of the wall as the arrow grazed his side, cutting a hole clean through his coat. George reloaded his crossbow, aiming for that stupid mask. He couldn’t miss again-- he wouldn’t-- 

In a smooth flash of movement, Dream drew a small vial of dark something and flung in at George. It caught him across the face and he felt a horrible burning. He tried to wipe it from his eyes, blink it away, raise his crossbow look for Dream--

Look--

He couldn’t see--

“Sapnap? Sap?” 

*********

Sapnap threw himself into a halt, almost knocking George into the mineshaft. “Bad? Bad!” 

There was no response from the pit below. Beyond, he saw Dream turn on light footsteps, glance back, and run deeper into the mine. For a moment Sapnap gripped his sword, thought of following, but could only shake his fist at the retreating figure.

“You’d better run, you creepy, green---”

“Nick!” George latched onto his arm, his grip so tight his knuckles were white. The crossbow hung loosely in his hand, and his eyes were enormous and afraid. “Nick, I can’t see… Bad fell...” he was hyperventilating. Sapnap pushed him gently into a sitting position, wiping bits of black liquid off of his face. A potion of some sort. 

“Shhh, shhh, George. You gotta breathe. He slowly untangled George's hand from his sleeve and began rummaging in his pack for rope. “I have to get Bad.” 

“Sap, I’m blind--”

“We’ll figure it out. I need to to stay right here and keep--” he paused awkwardly. “Keep an ear out for mobs or Dream.” 

“Dream?”

Dream had already faded into the shadows of the tunnel, long gone. “He ran off. I don’t think he’ll come back.” Sapnap secured the rope to one of the heavy oaken supports, praying to whatever was out there that it would hold. “Stay right here, George, please. I promise, I promise I’ll be right back.”

George gave him a shaky nod, and Sapnap felt his heart twist. His friend looked tiny and crumpled, sitting against the cave wall, his breathing ragged. He wanted nothing more than to give him a hug, help him, now, but Bad couldn’t wait. With a deep breath, he began to lower himself down the rope. 

Ten feet. Fifteen. Twenty. His feet touched the ground, and with trembling hands, he lit a torch. There! A little bundle of black cloth. He dashed over, turning his friend on his back. Bad’s eyes were shut, his glasses were gone, his face bloodied. 

Sapnap’s hands ran suddenly cold with fear. 

_He can’t. He can’t die._

Bad’s chest rose and fell, imperceptibly, and Sapnap gasped out a sigh of relief, his hand slapping against his friend’s face. “Bad, Bad! Dude, wake up! Please.”

George’s voice drifted down from above. “Sap? Did you find him? Is he--” 

“Yeah! He’s alive, he--” he stopped short as Bad’s eyes blinked open, and he coughed weakly. 

“Ow…” 

Sapnap crushed him in a tight hug, his friend’s head buried against his chest. “Oh my god. Oh my god. Shit, man, I thought-- we thought--”

Bad’s voice was indigent and muffled. “Language. Ow. Oh, ow, that hurts.”

“What hurts?” Sapnap released him from the hug and began checking for injuries. The blood on his face seemed to be from some scratches on his face, not a head injury, which was a relief. 

“It’s my ankle, I think it’s–” Bad was cut short by a small gasp of pain. Sapnap looked down and saw that, sure enough, his friend’s right ankle was not exactly…. at the correct angle. He felt his stomach turn and went rummaging through his pack, uncorking a healing potion as quickly as he could. He tried to pour it into Bad’s mouth, but a hand on his wrist stopped him. “You have to set,” he paused, a whimper escaping him, before continuing. “You have to set the bone first, otherwise it will never heal correctly.” 

Sapnap’s brain stuttered with fear. “I don’t know how, Bad.”

Bad’s face was pale with pain, but he somehow managed to sound comforting. “I’ll talk you through it, quick.”

“Sapnap?” George called nervously. “What’s happening?”

“Bad’s gonna be okay!” he called back, though he was rather lying through his teeth. “I’m going to take care of his ankle and get him out of here. You okay?”

“I’m fine! Still-- I still can’t see.”

“George can’t see?” The anxiety in Bad’s voice was louder than the pain already. “What--”

“It’s fine, it’s temporary, I’m sure,” Sapnap said quickly. Lying again. 

*******

Bad explained how to splint the bone so it healed properly. He sounded so calm, but the pain in his voice was terrifying. It was an arduous process, slowly pulling the boot off the swollen limb, making the bone lie straight, bandaging it tightly, against a pair of thin wooden sticks Sapnap tore from the mineshaft’s supports with his ax. It was only then that Bad allowed Sap to give him the potion of healing. Even with its restorative properties, there was no way Bad was walking. 

George’s eyesight hadn’t come back. 

There was no sign of Dream, nor of a single mob. That, at least, was something. 

“Okay,” he said brusquely, helping Bad up, where he balanced on one leg, leaning against the mineshaft wall. “We need to get out of here.”

“Have you seen my glasses?”

Sapnap scanned the floor and found them glinting in the faint torchlight. He frowned at the cracked glass and bent wireframe. “These have seen better days.” 

“They’ll have to do for now.” Bad unbent some of the wire, slipped them on his nose, and clambered awkwardly onto Sapnap’s back. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Sapnap lied. His hands were shaking. 

They began to climb.

******

By the time they found their way out of the mine, and then out of the ravine, finally collapsing onto the forest floor, the afternoon was fading. Sapnap was sore and tired to the point of tears, Bad still clinging to his back. The more pain-relieving effects of the potion were long worn off, and though he was doing his best to bite them back, the occasional squeak of pain escaped him.

Exhaustion tugged at Sapnap, but he grit his teeth, and gently set Bad on the ground. “We need to find you a crutch or something. We have to reach the glade before nightfall, before mobs arrive. Clay will be able to help.” 

George rubbed his eyes, staring around as if he could see by looking hard enough. “Sap, it’s not getting better.” 

Sapnap sat down beside him, taking George’s face in his hands. His eyes, normally brown and warm, were a cloudy grey. Bits of the dark liquid had dried on his face, looking like black tears on his pale skin. “What happened, George?”

“I had him-- I almost had him-- and he threw something at me. It must have been a potion.” George gripped Sapnap’s wrist tightly, a slight trembling in his hands betraying exactly how scared he was.

“A potion of healing might help?” Sapnap suggested. “Or the blindness might be temporary.” 

“It might,” George said, but he sounded doubtful. “Bad?”

Bad sighed, and scooted over to George’s side, inspecting. They both knew Bad had a history as a healer, but this seemed to be beyond him even. “A healing potion won’t do it. I could maybe create an antidote, but I’d need the supplies.” 

“We _have_ to get to the glade then.” Sapnap began lashing together branches to form a rickety crutch, helping Bad to his feet. “Bad, you stay next to me, and George, you take my arm. 

They continued onwards, through the ruins, down the hill, into the forest. They were only a few miles off, but between Bad’s limping pace, and George’s need for a guide, they made slow going, stopping frequently to rest. The sun began to set.

“We have to stop,” Bad said quietly. “You need a break, Sap, and if I’m honest, I’m not sure how much farther I can go.”

“A little further…”

George tripped on a tree root and almost fell face-first into the foliage, nearly dragging Sapnap down with him. Bad grunted as Sapnap jostled his back leg. 

“We can camp by the pond,” Bad suggested. “It’s safe, you can go get help, and I’ll keep watch.”

“I can’t leave you two! You’re injured, and George can’t fucking see--”

 _“Sapnap--”_

“Yes, I know, language. Sorry Bad.”

Bad ruffled his hair affectionately. “It’s alright, you muffin. You’re single-handedly saving us, I think you’ve earned one.”

“Bad’s right, Sapnap.” George said quietly. “We’ll set up camp at the pond. Clay told us that there aren’t usually a lot of mobs there, anyway, and Bad needs to rest.” 

Sapnap swallowed. “And what about Dream?”

There was a long pause. 

“We haven’t seen him except when we’re actively tracking him,” George pointed out. “I think he might leave us alone.” 

“Okay, then.” Sapnap said quietly. “We’ll stop.” 

*********

They set out their bedrolls, and Sapnap started a fire. The autumn wind was cold, and they’d grown lazy from their cozy nights in Clay’s cottage. 

“You could go on ahead and find Clay,” George suggested, but Sapnap shook his head. 

“You two can’t defend yourselves. I’m not leaving you. We’ll get to Clay’s in the morning, and figure out what to do from there. You try and get some sleep, I’ll keep watch.” 

Bad might have argued, but he was too tired, simply curling up beneath his patchy blanket and passing out. 

The fire crackled merrily. George lay down on the other side of the flames, but Sap could see him toss and turn. He shivered, wishing he had a coat, tucking his hands inside the sleeves of his sweater to keep his fingers warm. 

Something in the forest crunched. Footsteps on leaves? Or the chattering of a skeleton's teeth?

“Who’s there?” Sapnap reached for his crossbow. He heard George stiffen, trying to hear what was happening from where he lay. 

A green sweatshirt appeared in the flickering of a fire, and for a moment Sapnap froze. Dream? No, it was only Clay, his nose pink from the cold, his freckled face peering out from behind a tree trunk. “Sapnap?”

Sapnap breathed a shuddering sigh of relief. “Clay!” The forester came and knelt beside him, obviously startled when Sapnap pulled him into a tight hug. “Oh, it’s so good to see you, man.”

“What happened? I was looking for you, but you never came back to the glade.” Clay extricated himself from the hug, his hands twisting nervously in his lap. “Are you guys okay?” 

“Bad’s broken his ankle,” Sapnap explained. “And Dream blinded George with a potion.” 

Clay frowned as George sat up and scooted over, still wrapped in his blanket. “Let me see.” he inspected George’s cloudy pupils by the firelight. “If this is what I think it is, it will probably be better in the morning. The longest these things last is eight hours.” 

“And it’s already been at least four or five,” George said, the relief in his voice palpable. “Oh thank god. I was really scared there.” 

“What happened?” Clay asked nervously. “You found Dream?”

Sapnap sighed, and George leaned up against him, resting his head on his taller friend’s shoulder. “And we almost got him too.” He described how they had almost nearly caught Dream before he’d disappeared into the mine, how Bad had fallen, and their painful escape. As he talked, Clay stared at the fire, his face stretched into a frown.

“I suppose you’ll be telling us, ‘I told you so’” Sapnap concluded. “You didn’t want us to go in the first place.”

“I didn’t want you getting hurt,” he said quietly, finally looking up at them. “And I really do wish… I didn’t want this to happen to you.” 

George laughed a little awkwardly, staring into space. “Trust me, we didn’t want this to happen to us either. But we can’t stop now.” 

“You’re not leaving? What about Bad?”

Sapnap glanced at the quietly snoring huddle by the fire. He’d given Bad another potion of healing before he’d passed out, and hopefully, the pain would stay away long enough to let his friend sleep. “If we give him a week or so, he’ll be a lot better. Bad heals faster than most people, and I think we have enough potions of healing. And George and I will take the lead.” He set his jaw, trying to look more determined than he felt. “We won’t let anything happen to him.”  
“But he almost died! Because of Dream! You’re not scared?”

“Dream should be scared of us,” George said, which shouldn’t have been funny except that he was a tiny bundle of blanket cuddled up to Sapnap. “He shouldn’t have hurt Bad.”

“Or you,” added Sapnap, wrapping a protective arm around George. 

Clay pulled his hood over his hair, rocking slightly on his heels. “You care a lot about him. Bad, I mean.” 

George smiled a little bit. “Well, we kind of owe him our lives. Both of us.” 

Clay didn’t say anything, but his eyes asked for the story, and for some reason, Sapnap wanted to tell it. 

“Earlier last year, my Dad got sick. We lived out in a little town outside the Capital, and Dad had never made very much money. There wasn’t anything extra, and even when I got a job we could barely eat, much less afford the medicine he needed. So I took out a loan from a local rich dude. I figured he’d get better, I’d find a better job, we’d figure out a way to pay it back.

“But Dad didn’t get better. I had to take ask for more money. And then, four months ago, Dad--”

This was the hard part. Sapnap felt George’s arm put a comforting pressure against his waist. 

“I was alone, and there wasn’t anything left over. I missed a payment. And another payment. And you know how people are about debts.” 

Clay stared at him blankly. 

“Oh right, you’re a forest boy. Basically, if it looks like you can't pay your loan back, they lock you up until you can. You’ll be forced to work off your debt, and I’ve never heard of anyone getting out of there. It fucking sucks man. So I ran away before they came for me.

“But it turns out that running away isn’t much better. They sent hunters after me.”

“Hunters like you?” Clay asked. He was staring, quietly absorbed in the story, hunched over by the fire like an oversized frog in his green sweatshirt. 

Sapnap laughed. “We tend to work in a less official setting, but yeah, it’s the same thing. I managed to get away for nearly a month. Until, one week, I got cornered in an alley by a couple of assholes looking to collect the reward on me. They beat me bloody and got ready to drag me to prison. And then Bad showed up. Knocked them out with a brick and patched me up. And then he let me stick with him. We started hunting together, and we’d always be moving. He knew everything about operating in the underworld. The hunters haven’t found me again, but I know they’re on my trail. And then we met George.”

George snorted. “You were hunting me, you didn’t just meet me.”

“They were _hunting_ you?” 

He shrugged. “I’m a deserter. The price on my head rivals Nick’s.”

Clay frowned, obviously confused. “A deserter from what?”

They stared at him, astonished. “You really don’t know much of what’s happening outside of this forest, do you?” Sapnap said slowly. “Like, at all.” 

“I haven’t left.” Clay sounded defensive. Sapnap felt a little ashamed. 

“Sorry, dude. I didn’t mean anything, honestly,” he tried his best to explain. “There’s a war happening right now. It’s all very complicated, but it’s been going on for ages. If you’re unlucky--”

“Like me,” George interrupted. “If you’re unlucky like me you get conscripted. I ended up in boot camp over the summer. It was-- it was just terrible. And I found out that we were getting sent out soon, to the front lines.” he took a shuddering sigh, his blind eyes seeing some horrible things beyond them. “People would be coming back, wounded people. I saw a man with half his face missing. There were people who’d come back and couldn’t sleep, the nightmares were so bad. I just-- I couldn’t do it. I’d die if I was lucky. So I snuck off one night.”

“If you desert,” Sapnap added. “They tie you up and shoot you full of arrows. If someone from the army recognizes George, if a hunter finds him, he’ll be in a lot worse shape than me.” 

George stirred uncomfortably. His face looked like he was imagining all those arrows aimed his direction, and Sapnap felt a prick of guilt, he moved the story onwards as quickly as he could. “Lucky for George, Bad found him first. We were tracking him down in this little backwater town. We walked into a tavern, saw him sitting at a table, with a cup of tea no less. And Bad looked at me and just went, ‘we’re keeping him.’ And that was that.”

“Funniest thing is,” George said, “We don’t know anything about Bad at all. We don’t know where he comes from, or why he’s a hunter or anything at all. Shit, we don’t know his real name.” 

“He’s mysterious, sure, and a bit of a prude--”

“Overprotective--”

“So silly--”

“Like, the Muffinteers, what kind of stupid name is that?” 

“But,” Sapnap concluded. “We both owe him so much. That’s why this bounty on Dream is so important. Our employer is promising a lot of money.”

Clay nodded, understanding, finally. “You could pay off your debt, Sapnap.”

“And I could bribe an officer into to give me an honorable discharge. With the right documents, the hunters wouldn’t be able to touch me.” George smiled a little. “We’d both be scot-free.” 

“And then what?” Clay asked quietly. 

“We help Bad with whatever he needs. We’re,” Sapnap paused searching for the right words. “It’s hard to explain, Clay, but George and Bad are all I’ve got. We’re family now.”

“Agreed,” George said. 

There was something hungry in Clay’s eyes.

Sapnap wondered how long Clay had been alone. Why was he all by himself in this forest? Had he ever had a family of his own? He glanced down at George and saw the same questions furrowed against his friend’s brow. 

“Clay,” he said gently, “when we leave the forest, after we take care of Dream, if you wanted to come with us...we’d like that.” 

George nodded. “We really would.” 

Clay looked at them, and his eyes were bittersweet. “I’d like that a lot,” he whispered. “But I don’t think it’s possible.” 

******  
Sapnap was prepared to take watch, but Clay intervened. 

“You should sleep,” he said. “I can take the first watch and wake you up later. You’re exhausted.”

In any other situation Sapnap would have protested. But he trusted Clay, and his muscles ached, and his head felt so heavy it might fall off. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”

They sat side by side for a few more moments. In the light of the slowly dying fire Sapnap could see the worried tilt of Clay’s eyes as he gazed up at the starlit sky. “You know,” he said slowly, “I really am serious. About you coming with us.” 

“I know.” Clay sighed, and again, Sapnap cursed his face for being so hard to read. “Get some sleep Nick.” 

“Goodnight.”

Clay did not respond. He just stared upwards, his profile illuminated by fire and starlight. 

Sapnap went to sleep.


	6. The Shore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter and it's mostly fluff/angst. The real action happens soon though, so stay tuned :-) 
> 
> TW: discussions of injury and scarring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'd originally intended for this to be the first half of a long chapter, but my good friend @thatsnotgreatryan suggested I publish it separately, and I would trust them with my life and maybe my wallet. 
> 
> Once again, thank you so much to everyone who left kudos, a comment, or stopped by to read. 200 kudos???? 1.6k hits??? Just insane amounts of love and support???? You guys are ridiculous, and I love you all very much. It's meant a lot to me that people want to read the story I want to tell. 
> 
> Lots love and tea!   
> Teahound

Sapnap went to sleep. 

Dream sat, awake, and _felt._

He could feel roots digging through the quiet earth, the rustling of leaves reflecting moonlight, clouds drifting silently overhead. Mobs stalked nearby, but Dream told the forest to keep them away, and the forest listened. 

Dream didn’t command the forest. He didn’t have to. He just asked, and the forest listened, and sometimes the forest asked him, and he listened. It was a conversation, though occasionally Dream wondered if he and the forest were even separate entities at all, or just one being in two parts, a wood and something resembling a human being.

Once, this wood had been so much bigger. Dream had been bigger- something more- too, though he spent less time thinking about that. But then roads had cut the swaths of trees to ribbons, and little towns had started nibbling at its borders. He could feel the city, a seething mass of humans and light and noise, so alien to him, growing, growing, consuming him, cutting slowly away at him, opposition to everything he was. 

He wanted to see it. 

_Wanted._ It was a stupid word. He had not wanted things before this. But if he was on the subject of wishful thinking…. He glanced down at the sleeping figures of Bad, George, and Sapnap, huddled around the dying fire. 

He wanted another hug from Bad, he wanted to make George laugh, he wanted to tell Sapnap he would come when they left the forest. He wanted to call them friends, and not have to be afraid that they would find the coat and mask hidden beneath his mattress, torn and bloodstained from their battle only a few hours before. 

It was ironic really. The hunters, these stubborn mortals, wouldn’t leave the forest until he was dead. And dead he would not be able to leave the forest. His enemy could not have planned better torture if he’d tried. 

Really, Dream hadn’t been afraid of a future that ended with his death until today. He could feel moss and lichen growing through his wounds, stitching his body whole again. There was a deep cut on his arm (that had been Sapnap), and a shallow slash across his back that still stung (That one had been Bad, who, despite his sweet nature, swung a brutal blade). 

It had been close. Less than a year ago, he would have been impossible for them to have come so near to taking him down, but he was weaker now. He could still feel Bad knocking him to the ground, George’s arrow missing him by centimeters. 

The thing was, Dream did not want to die. 

All the wanting-- Clay, whoever he was-- tugged at him, but the forest whispered, a sharp wind kicking ash up from the fire and making Bad stir and mumble in his sleep. Dream sat back and let the woods swallow his mind, trying to forget himself. 

********

They returned to the cottage the next day. 

Bad would need time to heal, even with the help of the potions George and Sapnap insisted he take daily. He kept protesting that their supply would run too low too quickly; his friends told him they needed him back on his feet. 

As Clay had predicted, George’s eyesight had returned when he woke. He hated to admit how terrified he’d been those long hours stumbling through the darkness, clinging to Sapnap. A little whisper told him that he’d been lucky. He could have fallen like Bad, or that potion could have been a different kind, a killing kind, or Dream could have blinded him permanently. That whisper told him that they should leave the forest, now, before things got worse, before he got killed, or, more terribly still, he lost Sapnap or Bad…. 

But no. They had a mission to fulfill. As much as he enjoyed his life on the road with his friends, George craved security. He wanted to walk into a town without being afraid he’d be spotted and shot. He didn’t want to fear that Sapnap would be snatched up by Hunters and be on his way to prison before he or Bad knew he was missing. Currently, killing Dream and collecting their employer's reward was the fastest way to his goal. And they had been so close! After his first encounter with the masked whatever-it-was, George had feared, almost in the back of his mind, that Dream was unkillable. But he’d seen Sapnap draw blood, he’d seen fear. They could win. 

Besides, life in the forest was good. They were eating better than they had in the city, living off hunted game and foraged fruits and nuts, and the garden in the glade. The air was clear of smoke and stink. Autumn was beginning to creep across the forest, with bursts of fall flowers and the crisp cold that was not yet bitter enough to make them miserable. And there was Clay, who, despite the fact that they were all living in his one-room cabin, and eating him out of house and home, seemed happy to have them there. George liked Clay too. Like the forest, there was something sweet and sincere about him. He seemed eager for their friendship and bashful to be offered their affection. 

George wondered what kind of person he would be once he came out of his shell. 

He wished Clay had agreed to come with them. 

******

While Bad rested, George and Sapnap went to scout for Dream. 

“Be careful,” Bad said, for the thousandth time. “Whatever you do, don’t engage.” 

They promised. 

“I’ll come looking for them if they’re not back by supper.” Clay said. He was going to hunt for the supper in question, his handmade bow and quiver of arrows already slung over his shoulder. 

Bad smiled gratefully, and George felt a twinge of guilt for making him worry. Still, he wanted to keep tabs on their quarry. And, anyhow, he suspected that Dream wasn’t interested in another fight if he could avoid it. They would be safe. 

They set off into the forest, pausing now and then to enjoy the warmth of the autumn sunlight drifting through the canopy or to collect hazelnuts and stuff them in their pockets. The compass led them across a small brook, to the shores of a small lake, shockingly blue, almost completely hidden by the trees. There, across the water, was a yellow coat, looking more disheveled than before, and a figure inside it, white mask reflecting the sun.

Dream stood there and looked at them, and they stared back. There was some strange familiarity, a “hello” between hunter and prey. 

Once again, George wished he knew what was behind that mask. Did Dream even have a face? Or did he see out of painted porcelain eyes? 

Dream turned and walked into the forest, disappearing from sight. 

They walked back to the glade. 

“What I can’t figure out,” Sapnap said finally, “is why he keeps letting us live?”

“What?” 

Sapnap sighed, running a hand through his dark hair, which was growing scruffy from their time living in the woods. “That first night, he knocked me down. I was disarmed and helpless, and he could have slit my throat without trying. But he didn’t. And then, the other day, when we had him cornered, he punched me.” Sapnap still had a green bruise around his eye from that encounter. 

“Yeah, he punched, you,” George said, teasing, “Good for him. It’s a big improvement to your face.”

“You’re so mean! You don’t get it.” the hunter gestured wildly in the air, trying to explain. “He had a _sword_ , George. He could have just stabbed me. But he hit me and ran the other way.”

George thought about it. “Yeah, but he would have had to take more time to stab you. He was trying to get away quickly, punching you in the face was faster and took us by surprise.” 

Sapnap shook his head. “I think he’s holding back, George.” 

Dream, holding back when they were trying so hard to kill him? George thought about the still figure in the yellow coat, blending into the trees. They weren’t good people. They were hunters, after all, and they’d earned their reputation the hard way. But something about murdering Dream, especially if he was actively avoiding hurting them, didn’t sit right. 

He shook the thought away. Pity was something they couldn’t afford, literally. “You should probably get Bad to look at that bruise,” he said, changing the subject, and they didn’t talk about Dream again. 

*******

When Bad began to walk with the help of a crutch that Sapnap had carved, Clay took them to a grove of gnarled apple trees. 

“I’ve come here every fall,” he told them, piling the fruit, red and green, and gold into a handwoven basket. “There’s always more than I can eat, but I dry a lot for the winter. It’s good to have when most of the foraging is over.” 

George and Sapnap helped pick, while Bad sat on a nearby rock, his leg propped up, and a small pile of apples at his side. He was slowly munching through them, watching as his friends alternated between helpfully filling their baskets, and pelting one another with rotten fruit. An apple whizzed dangerously close to his nose (and his fragile glasses) and he sent a joking glare at Sapnap. “Look _out_ , you muffin!” 

“Whatcha gonna do, Bad?” Sapnap laughed and bounced another fruity missile in his hand with mock threat. 

Bad merely grinned and flicked the apple core in his hand in Sapnap’s direction, hitting him straight on the nose. The hunter let out a surprised explicative as a fell to the ground, holding his face, sputtering. 

“I think you’ve forgotten how good Bad’s aim is,” George said, chuckling a little, and kicking at a groaning Sapnap with his boot, while Bad scolded him for swearing. 

There was a sound like a leaky teakettle, and they all turned in alarm, to where Clay was doubled over. Laughing. 

He sounded like his lungs didn’t work right. It was terrible and hilarious at the same time, and it was very, very, contagious. Within a few seconds, they were all incapacitated with laughter, guffawing until their ribs hurt and they were left gasping for breath. 

“Clay, Dude,” George wheezed, “your laugh...I don’t think we’ve ever heard you laugh before.”

He stopped suddenly, looking at them with shocked eyes. “You’re right. I haven’t laughed for like… a hundred years or something.” 

Somehow, that struck them all as doubly hilarious, and they were off again in painful spurts of giggling. 

It was a long time before they regained their composure enough to lug the baskets of apples home. 

*******

The next day was shockingly hot. Clay brought them to a small lake, with a small strip of pebbly beach. George and Sapnap hung their shirts on bushes and swam in lazy laps, while Bad sat quietly, his sweater wrapped around his waist, fishing in the shade. Clay crouched awkwardly beside him, still wearing his long-sleeved black shirt. The wound on his arm was almost completely healed, but bits of moss still clung to the edges of his skin, and if he put a bandage on it, the hunters might ask questions. _They’ll find out eventually,_ he told himself sternly. _You’re just delaying the inevitable._ The others gave him strange looks but didn’t tease him. They were cautious when they talked to him as if Clay was going to shatter if they dropped him. Clay appreciated it; they weren’t exactly wrong. 

As the day dragged on, impossibly long, they built a small fire on the shore and cooked the fish on sharpened sticks, and George and Sapnap finally emerged from the water to soak up the sunshine and eat. 

It felt like he was meeting them all over again, seeing them here, in the red light of the sunset, shirtless, laughing together as they ate, comfortable in one another’s company. Sapnap had the old remnants of shiny burns on his arms, and George had long pale scars across his back. Bad had a faded, intricate tattoo above his left elbow. 

Clay hadn’t known that. He knew so little about all of them. It was just another reminder, really, that this friendship wasn’t real. Because as little as he knew about the three hunters, they knew much less about him. Because he was actively hiding the truth. 

They saw him staring and exchanged small smiles. “Childhood hobby,” Sapnap quipped, running a hand on a patch of shiny skin on his forearm. 

George grinned darkly. “Army discipline. I told you it was a fun time. It’s where I got this one too.” He pointed out a thin white line on the side of his neck, and Clay winced appreciatively.

They looked expectantly at Bad, who gave them an innocent smile. “I’ve already told you, I got matching tattoos with some friends when I was younger.”

Sapnap and George rolled their eyes. “We know that’s bull, Bad,” Sapnap told him. 

“It’s not!”

“Yeah,” George said, “it’s not, he’s just still hiding lots of secrets.” he turned to Clay. “Any cool battle wounds or something?” 

Clay hesitated, fiddled with his fingers, and then pulled up his shirt. There was a long jagged red and white scar that stretched from his stomach nearly to his heart. It was grotesquely large. They stared at him with enormous eyes. 

“Oh wow,” George said wonderingly. “That’s brutal.” 

“How did that not kill you?” Sapnap asked.

Clay shrugged, feeling a little awkward, and let his shirt drop. “It probably should have.” That much was true. If he’d been truly mortal, like them, he definitely would have died. 

“When did it happen?” Clay could see the part of Bad that knew how muscles and tissue and bones fit together bursting with curiosity. “And _how_ did it happen?”

“Maybe nine months?” he couldn’t remember for certain. “Last spring. Less than a year, at least.” 

He could see the questions painted clearly across their faces. “Yeah, but what happened?” Sapnap demanded. 

“Wild boar,” he said, halfway lying. “I guess I got taken by surprise.”

He could see the distress in their eyes, and it caught him off guard. They cared. They cared a lot that he had crawled away into the forest, bleeding out onto the moss, hiding, trying to hold his suddenly fragile body together, not sure if he was about to die, as his enemy followed him, searching, preparing to strike the killing blow. 

Bad stared thoughtfully at him, though his mind was clearly elsewhere. “You’ve recovered really well.” 

But Clay looked away. “To be honest,” he confessed, “I haven’t been the same since.”

***********

They returned to the glade. 

A week passed. 

George and Sapnap sparred by the creek. Clay harvested the remains of the vegetable garden. Bad made stew. 

George made Clay laugh again. Clay made George smile. Bad wrote in a journal and looked pensive. Sapnap tried to make cake and filled the cabin with smoke, and they had to eat dinner on blankets on the grass. 

They sat on the roof and watched stars. 

Bad began walking again, taking long rests, but declaring the fractured bone almost healed. He began organizing the remains of their medical supplies, carefully packing away their last few potions, preparing an antidote that would hopefully protect them if Dream had another potion of blindness.

George restrung his crossbow. Sapnap sharpened his sword. 

Clay stayed up late and stitched his coat back together while the hunters slept. 

Clay stayed up late and thought about telling them the truth. 

George made jokes about what they’d do with Dream’s intestines when they caught him. Bad sparred with Sapnap and declared that his ankle, while probably fragile, was in working condition. 

Clay didn’t tell them the truth. 

Clay didn’t want to die. Clay didn’t want his friends to die either. He even didn’t want them to get hurt. But he knew that all the wishing in the world wouldn’t change the fact that he couldn’t have both. 

Clay wished he could stop caring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading :)   
> Sources of inspiration while I was writing this chapter include the song Telescope by Cavetown and this animatic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYagPzGCEt0
> 
> Look for the next chapter today or tomorrow! Stuff is about to get a lot more intense... 
> 
> Have a great day everyone :)


	7. The Ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dream and the Hunters meet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, it's me again! Thanks to everyone who commented and left kudos on yesterday's chapter, I was taken by surprise by all the sweet and positive messages left for me. Thank you, everybody! 
> 
> TW: gore, and some detailed descriptions of injury. 
> 
> Enjoy the chapter!  
> -Teahound <3

The hunters left the next morning. 

George tried not to look at Clay’s face as he offered him a hug goodbye. “We’ll be back,” he said confidently.

“You said that last time.” 

“And we weren't lying, were we?” George released him, holding his shoulders. “I promise, Clay. We’ll be back, and then, maybe, we can go see the city together?” 

Clay didn’t meet his eyes. “Maybe.”

Bad came up behind them, his pack slung on his shoulders, and wrapped his arms around them both. “I’ll keep George out of trouble, don’t worry.” 

George snorted. “Who got into trouble last time?” he punched Bad in the ribs and grinned at Clay. “I’ll keep _him_ out of mineshafts.” 

Sapnap was trying to fit three additional baked goods into his pack and failing. Bad rolled his eyes and put the pastries, muffins, and the loaf of bread filled with apple pieces back on the worn wooden counter. “This is Clay’s food, you muffin.” 

“If you come back soon enough, you can eat it,” Clay offered them a forced smile. 

This time he walked with them to the edge of the woods. 

“See you later,” Sapnap said. 

George put a gentle hand on Clay’s shoulder. “I promise.” 

Clay looked at them, opened his mouth as if he was going to speak, and then closed it again. 

“Bye, Clay,” Bad said. “Take care.” 

He gave them his quiet smile and walked to the cabin, pausing at the door to wave. 

They walked into the forest. George checked his compass. It was an eerily familiar routine, leaves crunching underfoot, Bad and Sapnap chatting absently. 

Dream was behind them, and this time he wasn’t circling. Just somewhere at their backs, following. It was a little nerve-wracking, but honestly, it was hard to be afraid when the sun was shining so brightly, and Sapnap was laughing, and Bad was humming a song. If only George could get that _look_ on Clay’s face out of his head. Part of him thought Clay’s worry was sweet, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that their friend knew something they didn’t. 

They marched slowly uphill, their plans already laid out. They were returning to the ruins. 

“Dream doesn’t want us to go there,” Bad had said the night before, tapping his pencil on his journal. “He only showed up when we got close. And Clay seems to think that the ruins are connected with Dream, though he’s trying not to tell us the truth about it. Maybe there’s something there that will give us some clues.”

“At the very least he’ll be drawn out,” Sapnap said. “He’ll have to show up on our terms.” 

They stopped again at the pond for lunch. The compass suggested that Dream was still somewhere behind them, but they didn’t see him. 

_This is the day,_ George told himself. _We’re going to get him today._

They reached the first broken stones where they’d met Dream last time. There was no sign of him, but they grew more alert, tension trained into every muscle. Bad led the way, cautiously, his sword in his hand. They weren’t afraid, exactly. They all knew now that Dream could be wounded, and if he could be wounded then certainly he could be killed.

The landscape began to change. There, on the left, was the ravine they’d followed Dream down. Here were more scattered boulders, more toppled pillars. 

“Wait,” Sapnap said, “look. We’re in a courtyard or something. See? Pillars all around. And there’s the front door.”

They looked, and now that he’d said it, they could tell. Sure enough, there was a ruined threshold, two fallen stone doors lying on the ground. “What was this place?” George asked, scanning the expansive wreckage. “It’s like a castle or a fortress. Just sitting in the middle of the forest. Why?”

Bad knelt, inspecting the fallen stones. “And what happened? This was recent, guys. There’s barely any moss growing on these rocks.” 

They moved inwards cautiously, trying to puzzle out rooms and corridors from broken stone. “Do you think this is where Dream lives?” Sapnap wondered. 

“Lived, more like. Clay was right, this is just a ruin now.” George pointed suddenly. “That doesn’t look normal.” He was pointing at a cluster of dying vines stretched across the ground, wrapped against what was left of a wall. They were massive and covered in thorns that looked almost as long as his hand. Definitely not natural. 

As they ventured farther into the ruins their path grew more congested with the oversized thorns, and they had to pick carefully over them, catching their limbs on the razor points. New crevices and ravines opened up around them like a spiderweb, and they had to watch their steps carefully. Finally, they reached the center of the ruin.

There was a throne. 

At least, there had been a throne. Now it was simply an enormous chair, carved from stone and split down the middle as if it had been torn. Vines, dead, and dying greenery crowded around it. 

The silence was almost holy. 

George felt like cold fingers were wrapping around the back of his neck, though if it was fear or something else entirely, he didn’t know. 

“It looks like there was an earthquake,” Bad suggested, whispering without meaning to.  
But Sapnap shook his head. “An earthquake that completely destroyed this fortress but didn’t take down any other trees in the forest? Whatever happened here wasn’t natural.” 

They stood still, staring at the twisting foliage, ruptured trees, grass and moss, and wildflowers growing through broken stone. If this was caused by something preternatural, what could it have been? 

Who? 

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of George’s stomach as he realized that it had been a very long time since he’d checked the compass. Slowly he turned its metallic face towards him. The red needle pointed directly ahead. Towards the throne. 

He motioned to Bad and Sapnap, who didn’t hesitate, drawing their swords and standing defensively beside him. “Dream!” He shouted, and his words echoed terribly in the remains of the silent fortress. “Dream, we know you’re here.” 

He had not really been expecting anything. So, when Dream stepped out from behind the throne with catlike grace, only a few feet from them, he felt his hands run cold with shock. 

George doubted they’d ever actually been alone. 

“I told you to leave,” Dream said, and he sounded tired. There was something so familiar about him; they’d spent so many weeks fearing him, obsessing over this cryptic figure, and so now that he was here, standing so close, it felt like meeting an old friend. “Why won’t you leave me alone? I never wanted to fight you.” 

George’s fingers itched for his crossbow. He felt the figures of Bad and Sapnap at his side, stiff and ready and waiting for him to make the first move. “Sorry,” he quipped. “I’m afraid it’s business. Nothing personal.” 

_I think he’s holding back,_ Sapnap had said. Was he right? 

Were they wrong?

George didn’t think he cared. 

_“Nothing personal,”_ Dream repeated slowly, his voice dipping into that creepy sing-song George hated so much. “Someone is going to die Georgie. It’s me or you, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” George said grimly. He could feel his friends watching him.

They were going to win. 

“It’s you.” 

He whipped the crossbow upwards and fired. Dream was ready for him, dodging the bolt, but he wasn’t ready for Sapnap, who was already racing George’s arrow, clashing swords with the masked man, knocking him off balance. And there was Bad, flanking Dream, forcing him to fight defensively. Dream was good, his moments inhumanly fast, his feet finding purchase among the stones and thorns without trying, but he was one against three. 

With a sudden burst of speed, Dream slashed forward, getting under Bad’s guard and sending him stumbling backward. Before they could react, he swept out with his foot, hitting Bad’s injured ankle and knocking him to the ground. “Agh!” Bad winced in sudden pain. 

George ran to help him to his feet. “You okay?” 

“I’ll be fine, go get him!” 

Dream had taken advantage of their distraction to run, but Sapnap was close behind. “Get him, Get him!” George shouted, trying to catch up. Sapnap swung, missing Dream by inches, his sword getting lodged in the side of a tree from the force of the blow. Dream turned and kicked him in the stomach, sending him sprawling to the ground, but George and Bad had caught up now and were trading blows with Dream. Sapnap scrambled to his feet, ducking under Dream’s blade, trying to dislodge his sword from the tree. 

George pulled away, watched for an opening, waiting as Dream stumbled back under the weight of Bad’s attack, squeezing off another shot, and watching as the figure in the yellow coat took a moment too long to move. 

The arrow caught him in the side. 

Bad swung downwards, and Dream fended him off, barely deflecting the blow, sinking to one knee in the leaf litter of the forest floor.

It didn’t make a difference at this point, George thought. That arrow, that was enough to kill--no he corrected himself, that arrow was enough to kill a normal human being. 

Sapnap finally pulled his sword free and grinned. “Good shot, Georgie.” 

Dream gasped, struggling to his feet. 

Bad stepped away, easily dodging Dream’s blade, swung with violent desperation, and kicking him to the ground. 

For the first time since they’d first seen him, crouched up in a tree like a leering nightmare, Dream looked helpless. He was lying on the dirt, George’s arrow sticking out of his side, panting with pain and exhaustion, blood beginning to seep through the yellow coat. There was an emotion George didn’t recognize building up in his chest. He felt like he was going to explode. 

Sapnap came to stand behind the fallen figure. Sword in hand. He looked at Bad. 

Bad nodded.

He looked at George. 

George had never planned on being a hunter. He’d never set out to kill people. But this was what the world had made him, and it was far too late to learn pity now. 

He nodded. 

********

The thing was, Dream did not want to die. 

The thing was, Clay had a choice to make. 

The thing was that he’d survived the slow death of his forest. He’d lived, even when another, a stronger spirit, had come to challenge him. He’d lived when his fortress was shattered to rubble and dust. He’d lived, hiding from his enemy in the depths of the forest, lying in a glade, waiting, not sure if his broken body would heal or eventually kill him. 

He’d been diminished and splintered again and again over the course of a thousand years and he had lived. 

The thing was, Dream had never had friends before. And it was wonderful, and he loved them.

But had he ever needed them? 

He had to choose. Choose between himself, and Sapnap, whose sword was already swinging downwards towards his neck, Sapnap with burns on his arms and a smile that looked like trouble. And there was Bad, standing grimly before him, full of secrets, and hugs, with cool hands and a warm smile, and nonchalant bravery matched only by his kindness. And George, over there, his crossbow in his hands, and his arrow in Clay’s side, George who saw the colors wrong, and was always glancing behind him, and was always in awe of the stars. 

But the thing was: Dream did not want to die.

*******  
It happened slowly and quickly at the same time, a moment of utter stillness followed by absolute chaos. 

Sapnap’s sword swung downwards. 

_“LEAVE ME ALONE!”_

The words burst from Dream’s throat in a scream. It was not a human noise. It was an echoing, desperate cacophony full of fear and rage and despair. George dropped his crossbow, instinctively covering his ears. 

All hell broke loose. 

The ground began to shake, tiny tremors, making the hunters hesitate, glancing at one another with surprise. And then the vines burst from the ground, enormous, vibrant, curling around them. Sapnap, his sword still in motion, was knocked from his feet, vines winding their way up his legs, his waist, the sword falling from his hand. Bad stumbled, caught off balance, as Dream stood, shaking like a leaf, snapping off the jutting shaft of the arrow embedded in his side. An arrow that should have killed him. 

He advanced on Bad like a storm unfolding, and George tried to come to his friend’s defense, but the vines were coming for him now, curling upwards, holding him still. He fumbled for his blade, desperately hacking himself free. 

Bad stepped back. Bad, who believed in spirits and magic more than the rest of them ever had, was afraid in a way George had never seen. Dream’s hand reached out, summoning more vines, encasing Bad with greenery. Bad gasped for breath as they wound around his ribs, constricting him like serpents. 

George finally cut himself free, running towards the masked figure, tackling him to the ground, trying to pin him beneath his sword, but Dream kicked him off, scrambling to his feet, hands spread wide as he summoned more of the thorny briars. George slashed them away, desperately. He saw the trembling in Dream’s fingers, the stutter in his step. Maybe an arrow that should have killed him wasn’t doing its job, but he could see the sudden burst of strength waning. 

Sapnap was struggling desperately as a vine snaked around his neck, his feet lifted entirely off the ground. Bad was being dragged downwards, pinned to the dirt, one of those horrifically large thorns nearly touching his chin. 

George pressed forward, forcing Dream to defend himself with his blade instead of magic, the clash of their swords moving them farther and farther away from George’s incapacitated friends. He prayed that, with Dream’s focus divided, they would be able to escape. The edge of a shattered ravine loomed to his left. He pushed his foe towards it, staring into the eyes of the smiling mask with a grim determination in the pit of his stomach. 

He was not going to let his friends die. 

They struggled for a moment, poised on the edge of the precipice. George saw his moment, lunging forward, toward Dream’s heart.

At that moment, Dream dropped his sword, seized his wrist, and tore the blade from his hand. With a shove the masked man knocked him backward, off-balance, grabbing him by his shirt, holding him over the abyss. 

George’s feet struggled for purchase on the edge as he leaned back into empty space. Below him, he could see a drop to dark, broken stone. He was paralyzed with fear. The only thing between him and the ground fifty feet below was Dream’s grip on the front of his shirt. With a sudden movement, Dream kicked George’s blade over the side, and they listened to it bounce against the stone with a resounding clang. 

The moment seemed to last forever. 

_I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die._

His hand scrambled helplessly in the air and closed around the edge of Dream’s mask. 

He tore it away. 

Wide yellow eyes stared back at him. A pale face, spattered with freckles, a bit of dirty blond hair peeking out from beneath the hood of the coat. 

_“Clay?”_ George breathed. 

He couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, could only stare. Clay was looking at him, an expression of absolute devastation on his face, tears snaking across his cheeks, dripping off his chin. 

Clay was crying. 

_Clay was Dream._

“Clay?”

 _“It was me or you, remember?”_ he whispered. _“I’m sorry, George.”_

He let go. 

And as he fell, as the scream was ripped from his lungs, the cold porcelain mask still clutched in his hand, George saw Dream-- saw Clay-- turn and walk away, disappearing from view as the bottom of the ravine rose up to meet him. 

**********

The scream stopped suddenly.

Dream flinched, stopped walking, paralyzed. 

George- 

The pain in his side was almost too much. The arrowhead buried in his torso would kill him if he didn’t do something quickly. 

Was George dead?

No. No. No! This was what the forest had made him, and Dream had lived too long to learn pity now. 

_“Clay?”_ George whispered in his ear, a phantom voice, a memory of a frightened face. But Clay wasn’t real. Clay had never been real, nothing more than a game of make-believe. A lonely forest spirit wondering what it would be like to have friends. 

Was George dead?

 _It’s for the best,_ he told himself. _You were running on borrowed time. You knew it couldn’t last. You knew this would happen eventually._

He fell to his knees, the forest floor rising up to embrace him. A sob tore at his throat. 

The thing was, Clay wasn’t real. But they’d loved him anyway. Sapnap and Bad and George had loved him anyway. 

And they were his friends. 

Dream stumbled to his feet, pulling off his coat, taking the dagger from the sheath on his legs, and cutting into his side, his fingers digging for the arrowhead. Already, greenery was weaving its way through him, tying his skin together, stopping the bleeding, and pushing life into his veins. He grunted as he pulled the metal point out, dizzy with pain and exhaustion. He wrapped the coat around him and turned back to the ravine. 

Was George dead?

He began to run, desperation pouring through him like blood, a hand reached out, running to find his fallen friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *evil laugh* yeah that happened
> 
> Fun fact: I spent weeks trying (and failing) to draw Dream holding George over the edge of the cliff. It definitely didn't work out, but I did paint a bit of scenery inspired by the chapter which you may find on my Tumblr: https://tea-with-veth.tumblr.com/
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you have a wonderful week. Look for the next update sometime next weekend, if everything in my life goes according to plan.


	8. The City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hunters and Clay meet their enemy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! To celebrate my birthday, I am publishing fanfiction, and if that isn't a metaphor for my life I don't know what is.  
> Once again, this is a massive THANK YOU to all the wonderful people who read this story, those who left me kudos, and to the people who left behind comments with theories, compliments, and incoherent screaming. I loved all of it. As I write this, I have three hundred and thirty-six kudos. When I sat down to write this story, I said I'd be delighted if just one person read this, and left me a comment telling me they loved it. You can imagine how over the moon I must be now. 
> 
> Lots of love,  
> Teahound <3

George’s head hurt. 

Well, everything hurt. 

He blinked. He was lying on his back, staring up a rough wood ceiling, oak beams hung with dried vegetables. Moonlight illuminated the room faintly lighting up strange shapes in the darkness. This was the cabin in the glade.

“Hello?” he croaked. 

Something stirred, and his eyes strained to adjust to the dim light. It was a person, standing up from a chair in the corner of the room and rushing to his side. “Oh my goodness, you muffin, you’re awake!” 

George was completely enveloped in a warm hug, squeezed so hard it hurt. “Bad?” he said, and immediately winced, feeling a sudden spike of pain in his abdomen.

Bad released him. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” he fumbled for something in the darkness and pressed a cool vial into George’s hand. “Drink this.” 

George choked down the sickly sweet liquid. A potion of healing. The pain began to fade. “What-”

“Go back to sleep.” Bad took his hand and stroked it comfortingly. “I’m right here, and Sapnap’s outside keeping watch.”

There was something George had to tell them, but he couldn’t remember. “You’re okay?’ he mumbled. Why was he worried?

“We’re okay, George. Rest.” 

He drifted off again, Bad’s hand still curled around his. 

*******

When he woke up again, there was a warm afternoon glow coming through the window, and it smelled like baking bread. A rough brown coverlet was wrapped tightly around him, and a cool breeze blew through the open door of the cottage.

His head felt clearer than before, but the pain was still intense. He blinked, trying to sit up, and saw a shape bent over the fire. For a moment of deja vu he thought it was Clay. 

Clay. Oh. That was what he’d forgotten. 

But the figure by the fire was Bad, stirring something in the iron pot, who turned as he heard Geoge moving. “You’re up! No, lay back down.” 

George didn’t argue (his head hurt too much to bother) so he slipped down beneath the thin blanket again. “Where’s Sapnap? Is he--”

“He’s okay,” Bad said quickly as if he’d read George’s mind. “He’s right outside.” he strode to the door and called out something George, in his muddled state, didn’t quite catch. A moment later Sapnap came dashing through the door and would have tackled George in a massive hug if Bad hadn’t caught the back of his shirt. “Gentle,” he said with a warning glance. 

“You look terrible,” Sapanp said, but his expression was too serious for it to be a funny joke. George reached out and took his hand. “At least, for someone who's been sleeping for three days straight.”

 _Holy shit, three days?_ “Thanks a lot, Nick,” he said, and his voice cracked, so it wasn’t a very funny joke either. “Are you--”

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” the hunter patted his sleeve. “One of those thorns sliced up my arm but Bad stitched me up real well. I’ll be better soon.”

George glanced at the two of them, Bad who was hovering anxiously somewhere between him and whatever was cooking, and Sapnap, still holding his hand, sitting on the bed. His eyes strayed to the doorway, standing open and empty, looking out the emerald glade. “Where-- where is Clay?

They looked away. “We haven’t seen him,” Sapnap admitted slowly. “After we found you, we stayed in the forest during the night, and came back to the glade the next day, and it was empty. We’ve been waiting, but he hasn’t shown. I went looking for him last night, but we don’t have anything to track him with.”

There was a stone in his stomach, as he sat up in the bed again. “I might know why.” 

They looked at him. 

He told them the story. It wasn’t a long story either, just a handful of sentences. He’d fought Dream to the edge of the cliff. Dream had held him swinging over the precipice. He had, in a moment of unthinking desperation, snatched at that porcelain face. 

Dream was Clay. 

Clay had dropped him to what should have been his death. 

Sapnap swore. Bad seemed too preoccupied to correct him. 

“You don’t believe me? George asked cautiously. 

But Bad shook his head. “No, I believe you. It’s just that it makes _too_ much sense. I should have figured it out ages ago.”

“We all knew that Clay was hiding things,” Sapnap admitted. “Still, he seemed, I don’t know, nice. He was a good guy.”

George looked down at his hands, at a large bruise on his arm, the scratches and abrasions that must have been a result of his fall. He didn’t even know how broken his body was, and he suspected that Bad wouldn’t be willing to admit how close to death he’d come. “I don’t think we knew him at all, Nick. I don’t think he was ever really our friend. He’s a monster.” 

_He was crying,_ a voice in the back of George’s head reminded him. _He didn’t want to hurt you._

_That was your arrow in his side._

“There’s one thing that doesn’t make sense,” Bad said finally. “We didn’t find you at the bottom of a ravine.”

“What?” George looked at him, confused. “But--”

“Bad’s right. We heard--” Sapnap shuddered a little. “We heard your scream, and then the vines stopped growing, and we weren’t sure--” he paused again, and George suddenly realized that they’d thought he was dead. “But when he got there, you were lying on the grass by the cliff. And there were these things.” Sapnap walked over to the counter and placed a glass vial and half of a smiling porcelain mask in George’s hands. 

He gave the vial an experimental sniff and frowned, the sweet scent of melon all too familiar. A healing potion? And the mask. He remembered it clutched in his hand as he’d fallen, and it must have shattered when he hit the ground. Where had the rest of it gone? “What happened, then?”

Bad drummed his fingers on the end of bed and then stood to fetch a handful of wooden bowls and spoons. “He must have gone back for you.” he dished up the soup and passed the bowls to them. “And now he’s avoiding us. Or-” 

George felt an emotion he wasn’t sure he could name eating at this heart. “Is he,” he began and found he didn’t know how to continue. 

“I don’t think he’s dead,” Bad said quickly. “I think I’d feel it, this whole forest would feel it, if he was gone. And he’s not human. It would take a lot more to kill him.” 

They sat in silence, eating soup. There were three of them stuffed into the tiny room, but it felt oddly empty without Clay. 

George wondered if Clay-- no, Dream-- really had come back for him, if he was responsible for that empty potion bottle. He wasn’t sure he believed it. 

“Now what?” Sapnap asked finally. 

Bad stood, collected dirty dishes, pushed his glasses up his nose in a familiar gesture. “We’re going back to the city as soon as George is able.”

“But what about--”

“No bounty is worth it, Nick.” 

“We need--” 

“No!” Bad shouted, and Sapnap fell quiet, he and George shrinking back in surprise. The anger faded from their friend’s face, and was replaced with shame. “I’m sorry Sap. But we almost lost George. I’m not losing either of you, understand? You’re my family.” he came and sat down on the bed, and took George’s hand. “And besides, do you think we could really kill Clay?”

Monster or no, George didn’t think he could. 

“We’re going back,” Bad said. “And that’s final.” 

*********

Sitting under a shadow of an oversized oak, Clay felt it when the hunters left the forest. He hadn’t realized how familiar they had become, how well he knew their footsteps across the fallen leaves. Their presence was as natural as breathing. 

And now they were gone. 

Clay limped his way back to the empty cottage in the glade, half of a shattered mask in his pocket, and he told himself that he was glad that he wouldn’t have to hurt them anymore. 

*********

Bad didn’t like the city. He’d forgotten how loud it was, with humans and animals, and how crowded and dark and smelly the twisting cobbled streets were. The factories on the far side of town belched smog into the sky that settled over the crooked buildings, and it was a painful contrast to the clear quiet of the forest. It had only been a few days since they’d left, but Bad already missed those still, dew-bright mornings in the glade like an ache in his chest. 

And he’d forgotten how frightened they all became, scurrying through alleys and darkened corners, glancing over their shoulders. Looking for hunters coming for Sapnap, or moving out of the way as a row of shiny soldiers marched by, praying that George would not be recognized, hoping that they wouldn’t discover posters with their faces on it plastered against a wall. 

“I hate to say it,” George muttered, leaning over to Bad, “but I’m starting to have second thoughts.” 

“It was your idea,” Bad pulled his hood a little farther over his face. It was three in the morning, and the chances of them being seen were slim, but caution was key. 

“I know. We need the money. I just-”

Sapnap jostled George’s shoulder. “Not a good time to back out now, Georgie. Think about those bags of gold waiting for you.” 

George sighed, but his fingers lingered on the hilt of his sword. He wasn’t wrong, Bad thought. A smart mercenary didn’t lie about having completed their job. It always came back to bite you. But the three of them had been living with shadows at their back for a long time. One more wouldn’t hurt, would it?

They arrived at the tiny, smelly tavern, mostly empty except for a few patrons who had already drunk themselves into oblivion. It was a good spot for covert meetings.

Sapnap ordered drinks. They waited. 

The door opened, and it was like a cold breeze had settled over them. The red-cloaked figure drifted in and stood at the end of the table. “You sent a message?” 

George set down his tankard and tilted back in his chair. Despite his earlier nerves, he looked ridiculously collected. “You have the money?”

“You did it?” 

There was a note of incredulity in the figure’s monotone voice that wasn’t lost on Bad. He leaned forward across the table. “Not so fast. We have questions for you.” 

“I thought people like you were usually good with the ‘no questions asked’ sorta thing.” 

Sapnap snorted. “We don’t usually get asked to murder a fucking forest spirit.” 

“Language,” Bad murmured. He looked at the figure, trying to see a face beneath that hood. “We’ll tell you what happened. You have to tell us what you want with a dead spirit.” 

The tension in the room could have been cut with a knife. 

They waited. Bad reached for George’s hand under the table, trying to steady his friend. The figure laughed, and then, lowered his hood. 

_Oh,_ Bad thought, because what he was looking at wasn’t human. Small curling tusks emerging from the corners of the mouth, fine pink hair in a thick braid down his back, a golden circlet on his head, and a long white scar down the side of his face, splitting his eyebrow and just missing a glaring red eye. 

_Oh no,_ Bad thought, because he thought he knew who, and what, he was seeing. 

“You’re a spirit,” he said. 

In the corners of his eyes he saw Sapnap and George freeze, try to subtly reach for weapons. 

“Technoblade,” the figure said. “But I’m thinkin’ you already know that.” 

“The spirit of...this city,” the name conjured up old illustrations in yellowed texts, old legends, the image of something not quite resembling a man in red and white and gold. Bad’s days in a dusty library brought to life. 

“Yeah, that’s me.” The figure, Technoblade, sat down opposite them, putting his boots on the table, and stealing Sapnap’s drink. It was a frighteningly sharp contrast from the mysterious cloaked monolith of only a few moments before. That cold feeling still radiated off of him in waves, though, and there was intimidating, unshakable confidence to him. 

George stared at Bad as if looking for advice. He wished he had some to offer. “I don’t understand,” he said finally. “Why didn’t you just off Dream yourself, if you want him dead so badly?” 

Technoblade shrugged. “I tried. He’s a slippery guy, and I’m not really a fan of campin’, so I didn’t finish the job. But,” he said, taking a swig of Sapnap’s drink and staring at them through those strange red eyes, “you said it’s taken care of?” 

Reaching into his bag, George pulled out half a porcelain mask and slid it across the table. It looked like it was judging him with its single eye and half-smile. Technoblade picked it up, spinning it in his hand. “You wanna know why I want this guy dead?” he asked. “He’s annoyin’. At first, I thought it would be fun. You know, go murder the grandpa forest spirit who keeps tryin’ to grow back instead of makin’ way for industry. Good weekend trip, y’know?” 

They stared, fascinated, and horrified. 

“I almost got him too. But he snuck away from me before I could finish him off. He’s a thorn in my side.” the spirit spun the mask around in his hand, the grim grin on his face mirroring the shattered smile on the porcelain mask. “And now you say you’ve finished him off for me?” 

Bad thought about Clay’s scar, the one that nearly touched his heart. _Oh._

George looked pale, but Bad had to admit he was keeping his nerve remarkably well, all things considered. “He’s composting on the forest floor. We could have used a warning about those ridiculous vines, though.” 

The mask danced between those long fingers. “So annoyin’. You know, I always liked you humans. You’re stubborn and real go-getters,” 

He paused and set the mask on the table. “And so, so stupid. I’m honestly a little disappointed. I respect your bravery, but really. I thought you wouldn’t give up so easily.” 

“Was that supposed to be an insult, pigman?” Sapnap snapped, but his words were drowned out by the frightened look in his eyes. 

“Yeah, I guess.” Technoblade stood. “How dumb do you think I am, Muffinteers?” 

“We’re not called the muffinteers,” George said. It came out as more of a squeak. 

“I know he’s still out there. I’d feel it if he was gone.”

Bad stood, placing his hands on the table to steady himself. “Okay. Okay. We lied. He was a little too much for us.” 

Technoblade laughed. “And you still wanted to collect the reward? I knew I liked you.” And then those red eyes fixed on them, and Bad took a step back, that coldness digging into his bones. “I guess if you want a job done right you gotta do it yourself, huh?” 

He stood and in a single motion flipped the table. 

The drinks went everywhere, the hunters scrambled back. The handful of half-asleep patrons jerked awake and stared with bleary eyes, the bartender yelled, and hunters drew their weapons and backed away. Technoblade strode forward and seized George by his shirt. Before they could respond he’d flung their friend into a table halfway across the room. 

Bad ran for George. Sapnap drew his sword and swung at Technoblade, but the spirit sidestepped the blade and scooped George’s pack off the floor. He reached in and withdrew the compass. 

“You okay?” Bad said, praying that no bones were broken. His friend seemed fine, though, if bruised and shaken. 

George winced, accepting Bad’s hand and standing. “I’m good.” he was hyperventilating a bit, his eyes fixed on the crimson figure. “What the hell is happening, Bad?”

Bad wished he knew. 

Sapnap tried to tackle Technoblade to the ground, but again, he simply stepped aside and used the hunter’s own momentum against him, knocking him to the ground and drawing a diamond sword. 

Bad and George started forward, hands on their weapons. 

“Stop,” said Technoblade, and the point of the glittering blade pressed against Sapnap’s throat. 

They froze. 

“Smart.” Technoblade looked down at the compass in his hand. “Answer a question for me, muffinteers. This compass. Where is it gonna take me?” 

Bad glanced at George, at Sapnap on the floor. “It will take you to the mask.” 

They all looked at the fragment of porcelain lying on the ground beside the overturned table. Technoblade sighed and lifted his sword from Sapnap’s neck. Sapnap scrambled away, nearly into George and Bad’s arms, while the spirit ground the piece of the mask to dust with the heel of his boot. 

From where they stood Bad could see the red needle, swinging, swinging, and turning in a new direction, to the forest, to the other half of that porcelain face. 

_Oh._ Bad thought. _Oh no._

He snapped the compass shut, and put it into a pocket of that long red cloak. The three of them stood there, frozen. “Thanks for the help, muffinteers.” he quipped, and with a salute of that diamond sword, he vanished. 

*********

The sun was rising, but it was raining, so the sky was stained an ugly grey, the only sign of the coming morning a faint lightening in the clouds above their heads. The hunters stood beneath a bridge, in some squalid alleyway, wet, and cold, and frightened. 

“We have to get the compass back!” George said. He was limping again, and Sapnap could see an ugly bruise blooming on the side of his face. “We’re useless without it!” 

Sapnap pivoted sharply on his heels to face his friend, not trying to hide the molotov cocktail of emotions sweeping through him. “The compass? Are you kidding George? Are you kidding? What about Clay? Technoblade is gonna kill him! You saw the scar, you heard what he said--”

“Nick, when are you going to get it through your head that Clay wasn’t our friend? He isn’t even real! Dream--” 

“We were trying to kill him!” Sapnap ran a hand through his hair, looking pleadingly at Bad. “Of course he didn’t tell us he was Dream! He didn’t know what we would do, George.”

George stared into the distance, somewhere past Sapnap’s shoulder. “You didn’t see his face. You know, his face when he dropped me off that cliff.” 

“What did it look like?” Bad asked quietly, and they both turned to face him. 

George hesitated. “He- he was crying.” 

They stood in silence, the rain pouring down around them, spattering loudly against the cobblestone. 

“He came back for you,” Bad placed his hand on George’s shoulder. “I really think he did.”

Sapnap looked pleadingly at them. “You remember picking apples together, and his stupid laugh? And when he kept watch so we could sleep, after Bad broke his ankle? And he always tried to stop us, he was always trying to warn us when we left. And do you remember that he would bake fresh bread, and put dried fruit in it because we liked it so much? _He was our friend._ You know I’m right.”

His friend wore an indescribable expression on his face, half misery, and half happiness. “You’re right,” George whispered, his voice almost drowned out by the rain. “Yeah, you’re right.” 

Bad sighed and wrapped them both into a hug. “Then you both know what we have to do.” 

“We’re going back,” Sapnap said, resting his chin on Bad’s shoulder, an arm around George’s waist. “We’re going back to the forest and we’re gonna save Clay.” 

“This is a really bad idea,” George muttered. “You know that Technoblade guy literally threw me across a room, right? And we’re never going to catch up in time. Did you guys not notice that he can probably teleport or something weird like that?” 

They pulled apart, and Sapnap reached for his sword, adjusted the pack on his back, and gave his friends a bittersweet grin. “We’d better start hiking then,” he joked. “What’s the call to battle?”

“Not money,” Bad said. 

“No.” George agreed. “Not for the money this time. We’re going back for our--” he hesitated only a moment. “For our friend.” 

**************

Dream felt a presence enter the forest. 

It felt like his heart was full of ice. 

_He can’t find you here,_ he thought to himself, looking out the door as the last few raindrops of the cloudburst fell on the glade. _He didn’t find this place last time. He won’t find it now._

He did his best to ignore it. He baked a loaf of bread he knew he wouldn’t eat. He lay on the grass and watched the morning clouds disperse into a sunlit afternoon. 

_Look out,_ the forest whispered. 

_I’m safe,_ he told the forest, but his fingers lingered on the half of a mask in his pocket. He wished he could put it on his face, slip away into the shadows of the forest, and become nothing more than a faceless something. Without it, he felt too real, too vulnerable, too human. 

He patched one of the fresh tears in his green cloak. He weeded the garden and admired the colors of autumn staining the trees around him. 

He stood at the door of the cottage and watched as the red-cloaked figure came to stand at the edge of the glade. 

Technoblade snapped the compass shut and gave him an enormous porcine grin. “Found you.” 

“Yeah,” Dream said, feeling the fear settle into his bones, and the courage rushing up to meet it, reaching for the iron axe hanging by the door, “I guess you did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to Maaiams for somehow figuring out pretty much the entire storyline of this fanfic after Chapter 4. The absolute madman. Also, props to all of you who saw Technoblade coming. When I started this fic I knew practically nothing about him. Now, fanart of him is my desktop background. I don't know what happened over the course of this month, but I would die for Mr. Blade. 
> 
> You can find art I did inspired by this chapter on my Tumblr (https://tea-with-veth.tumblr.com/) because Minecraft men are my only source of inspiration now I guess. :)  
> Thank you all so much for stopping by, and have a wonderful week!


	9. The Throne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Technoblade voice* fight fight fight fight fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you read, please know I am infinitely thankful for you. I read (and re-read) your comments on bad days, and my beta readers and I popped open the virtual champaign to celebrate 400 kudos earlier this week. I'm so excited that people are both discovering, and returning to my story, and enjoying it. 
> 
> TW: for blood and violence and stabbing

The first time they’d entered the forest, the hunters had felt like strangers in enemy territory. Now it felt like going home. Without the compass to guide them, they did not know where Dream was, or how to find him, so they struck out for the glade, praying they weren’t too late, fearful of what they might find, hoping they wouldn’t get lost among the twisting tree trunks. 

They smelled it before they saw it. The acrid scent of smoke, filling their nostrils and clouding their lungs. They stumbled into the glade, the taste of fire on their tongues. 

“Oh no!” George cried, heartbroken, and Bad bowed his head. Sapnap stared incredulously out at what once had been an emerald green clearing amid the trees, with a tiny cottage sitting peacefully at the center. 

The cottage was nothing but ash and broken wood, the remains still burning. Clay’s carefully tended vegetable garden was trampled to mud, the grass torn and singed. 

“Clay!” Sapnap was screaming, dashing toward the smoldering rubble, wading through broken wood and stone and choking on the smoke. “Clay!” 

Bad caught up, pulled him back, his eyes scanning the wreckage. “He’s not here, Sap. He’s not here!”

“But--”  
George was already searching the ground for signs of a trail. Suddenly he stopped short at the edge of the woods. “Guys, over here!” they came, running, and he pointed out a familiar-looking coil of thick green vines, slashed to bits. The ground here had been torn up, and George could almost see them locking blades, Dream sending the vines, Technoblade slicing them away. Two gods, fighting with inhuman power. “He must have gone that way.” 

Bad drew his sword. “Hurry!” 

They ran. George could feel his heart pounding against his ribs, breath coming in spurts of desperation. He couldn’t forget Clay’s horrified expression the last time he’d seen him. He saw Technoblade grinding the porcelain mask to dust beneath his heel. 

As they went, they saw signs of the struggle. More vines, twisted thorns pointed skyward, bloomed across their path. Here was a fallen tree, here a crack in the ground that hadn’t been there before. They reached the pond, where the mud was smeared with footprints. Bad, ever the hunter, bent down, observing, thinking. 

“Clay-- Dream was limping,” he said finally, a bit of fear creeping into his voice, and then, “this was only a few minutes ago. We’re getting close.” Bad’s eyes wandered up the hill, across the path of destruction their friend and foe had left in their wake. “They were going to the ruins.” 

They ran. 

George wondered if they were crazy. They were exhausted and sore. His ribs still ached from his recent collision with a table, not to mention the rest of his body, which was still recovering from an involuntary fifty-foot cliff dive. Technoblade had barely had to try to defeat them, and here they were, running into battle to save the guy who had almost killed them only a week and a half before. 

Yeah, they were crazy. 

Thorn bushes caught on their ankles, roots reached up to trip them. They kept running, following the trail laid out in destruction. 

Suddenly, the first of those enormous stones reared up ahead of them, and Bad stopped short, a finger to his lips. Somewhere ahead of them, they could hear voices. Not the sound of metal meeting metal, or screamed battle cries. This was the sound of a conversation. George stopped short as a glint of metal caught his eye. An iron axe, the blade stained with blood, lay abandoned on the path. He’d seen this axe before, hanging by the door of Clay’s house. He motioned to Sap and Bad, and their worried expressions as they saw the weapon mirrored his own perfectly. 

They crept closer, hiding behind fallen stones, trying to make out words. Yes, there was the sound of Technoblade’s deep monotone. And then they heard a cry of pain. Clay’s voice. 

George felt a sudden lurch in his stomach. “Guys-” 

“Quiet,” Bad breathed, but there was panic on the edges of his voice. 

They drew nearer and nearer throne, and finally, pressed against a crumbling wall adorned with wildflowers, peered out to the center of the ruins. 

Technoblade sat on the broken throne. Well, sprawled was a better word. A leg hung across the armrest, and the red cloak was draped over the back of the stone chair, revealing a ruffled white shirt now red with blood. His head was tilted back, his long pink hair falling out of his braid, the golden circlet sat crookedly on his brow. 

But they barely noticed him. Their eyes were fixed on the figure who was knelt on the loam in front of the throne. 

It was Clay. They couldn’t see his face, but the slump of his shoulders and the hitch in his breath told them all they needed to know. His coat hung loosely around his shoulders, sliced and stained with blood and mud, and there was no telling to whom that blood belonged. More notable though, were the unearthly translucent golden shackles and chains binding his wrists and holding him to the ground. 

“--don’t look so good, old man.” Technoblade was saying.

Bad held up two fingers, pointing left and right. A familiar signal. George slipped an arrow in his crossbow, and crept away, as Sapnap snuck out the opposite direction, hand on his sword. He winced as his feet crunched on dry leaves, but Technoblade seemed too preoccupied to notice them. There was an enormous stone, with a good view, and George ducked behind it, his hand hovering on the trigger of the crossbow. From here he could see Clay-- no, Dream’s expression. There was dark defiance in his eyes, but George saw the spirit’s hands trembling. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth and dripped down his chin. 

Technoblade stood, stretching, the diamond sword dangling lazily from his hand. “You’re bein’ very quiet.” 

Dream spat blood at his shiny black boots. “I don’t feel like talking.” 

“No final words? If you wanna monologue, now’s the time.” The diamond sword circled closer and closer, the blade scraping gently against Clay’s neck, leaving behind a thin red line. “I’m ready to be done with this whole ‘bein’ in nature’ thing, not gonna lie.” 

For a moment Dream strained against those shimmering chains, and George felt a burst of hope. But after only a second their friend had doubled over, coughing, blood splattering against the dead leaves.

Not a good sign.

“Come on, gramps, you’re really lettin’ yourself go.” Techno circled around the kneeling man like a shark, a grin to match. 

“You don’t look too hot either,” Dream wheezed, nodding to the bloodstain spreading across the fancy white shirt. “Red’s a better color on you anyway.”

“Blood for the blood god, huh. Pretty sure most of this is yours, Dream.” 

Dream didn’t respond. 

Technoblade sighed, looking out across the landscape. George ducked lower. “It’s time you moved on, old man. Things are changin’. This world is gettin’ tired of stubborn things like you, stickin’ around after you’re not wanted anymore. No hard feelins’ but we’re kind of past the age of inconvenient oversized forests.”

“And moving into the era of inconvenient oversized cities?” 

“Exactly.” he chuckled to himself, “God, it’s gonna be so good to be done with you.” 

George met Sapnap’s eyes across the clearing, where his friend crouched behind a stone. 

“I’ll be pretty glad not to see your face anymore either.” 

Technoblade was standing behind Dream now, his sword resting on his shoulder. “It’s gonna be the last face you see,” he said, and he raised the diamond blade to the sky. 

******

Dream did not want to die.

But here he was. 

He stared up at the blue of the sky, at the gold and red leaves drifting slowly down from the canopy, and tried to feel an emotion that wasn’t abject terror. He wasn’t sure if he was succeeding. 

Instead, he tried to imagine he was sitting by the bank of the quiet lake, around a dying fire, listening to Sapnap cracking jokes, and George laughing, Bad’s arm draped around his shoulder. 

The moment lasted forever.

*******

The diamond blade swung into the sky, blue on blue. 

George thought about Dream dropping him from the cliff. He thought about Clay laughing in the orchard. He thought about sadness in his face when he stared up at the stars. 

George stood and pulled the trigger.

An arrow sprouted from Technoblade’s hand. 

He dropped the sword with a scream of shock and pain. 

Sapnap burst from the other side of the clearing, his sword swinging, Bad running in from behind.

George reloaded the crossbow. 

******

Technoblade screamed. Dream’s head jerked forward, surprised, and he saw George. George, who was standing with the crossbow on his shoulder. George with grim determination on his face that suddenly melted into a tiny smile as their eyes met. 

And there was a black-and-white-and-silver blur in his periphery that could only be Sapnap.

And suddenly here was Bad, filling his vision, a hand cupped around his cheek, wiping the blood off his face. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” he gasped. 

Bad gave him a tender look that made his heart stutter. “Saving you, you muffin. Also, _language_.” 

“I tried to kill you.” 

“You also tried very hard not to kill us. And we did try to kill you, too.” Bad’s hands were gently poking and prodding. “Where are you hurt?” 

There was another yell and a crash as George went sprinting by, sword in hand. Dream tried to turn and look behind him, to see what was happening, but Bad turned his face away, even though his eyes were worried. “They’ll be fine. Concentrate, Clay. Injuries?”

Dream paused, trying to assess the riot of aches and pains, recalling each painful moment of the battle with Technoblade. “I think… my ribs might be cracked. And there’s a cut on my left side...it’s pretty deep.” 

“I’m out of healing potions,” Bad said. 

“There’s one left in my coat pocket.” The hunter dug out the glass vial and poured it into his mouth, and the pain began to fade, just a little. The single potion wouldn’t be enough to fix whatever damage had been done to his body, but it would probably keep him from dying. Hopefully. 

Bad reached for the golden chains, but his hand passed through them. “Magic?”

Dream nodded, then started as he heard George yelling somewhere behind him. Turning back he caught sight of a blue shape skidding across the forest floor. “Yeah, it’s magic. I can break them with some time, just keep him distracted.” 

“You’ll be okay?”

“I will,” he caught hold of Bad’s sweatshirt as he turned to go. “You came back.” 

He wasn’t sure what he was trying to say, but Bad understood.

“Yeah.” he drew his sword, his eyes fixed on the battle taking place somewhere behind them. “Of course we did. You’re our friend.” 

**********

Even as he knelt in front of Dream, Bad was watching the battle taking place, just beyond them.

He watched Sapnap come swinging in, taking advantage of Technoblade’s distraction, but his enemy was ready for him. With a kick of those black boots, Technoblade sent him stumbling back. 

George sprinted by, sword drawn, to come to Sapnap’s aid and Bad watched in horror as the spirit ripped George’s arrow out of his hand, and spun, sinking the bolt deep into George’s shoulder, sending the hunter skidding back with a yell of pain. 

He had to go. He wished he could stay with Dream, but his friends needed his help. 

He gripped the blade in his hands. "You're our friend," he told Dream, hoping he knew that the words were true, and charged into the fray. 

Technoblade’s back was to him, and he sliced downwards, but at the last second, Technoblade turned, blocking what should have been a fatal blow with his forearm. The sword sunk deep into the flesh of Techno’s arm, but Bad still felt a twinge of fear. 

No human being should have been able to keep fighting. But Technoblade was doing in anyway, wrenching his arm free with a grunt of pain and grabbing the front of Bad’s shirt, kneeing him in the stomach and wrenching his sword from his hand. Blood was running down his arm, his hand mangled from George’s arrow, but he gritted his teeth and took Bad’s sword in his left hand.

Of course he was ambidextrous. Of course. 

Bad, now weaponless, dodged back in the nick of time, ducking behind a rock as the blade came slicing toward him, ripping across his sweatshirt. 

“AHHHHH!,” Sapnap charged in from behind, shoving Technoblade with his shoulder. He had stolen the glittering diamond sword that had fallen from the spirit’s hand moments before. Technoblade turned to meet him, and the clash of their blades sounded like it filled the entire forest. 

Bad ran to George’s side. The hunter was leaned against a rock, the red-feathered arrow sticking out of his shoulder. His breath was coming in desperate gasps. Wasting no time on comforting words- they had no time to spare, he didn’t know how long Sapnap would last alone, he had to hurry back--Bad pulled his small stiletto from his boot. “Ready?” 

George nodded, gritting his teeth, and whining in pain as Bad cut the arrow out of his shoulder with surgical precision, and began to wrap the wound tightly with a roll of cotton bandages from the bag on his hip. He’d need stitches, probably, but when Bad glanced back, Sapnap had a cut on his face that hadn’t been there before. He hurried. “Stay here.” 

“You guys need help-” George gasped, even though it was obvious that he was trying not to pass out. 

“You’re in no condition. _Stay here.”_

He took George’s sword, and turned back, just in time to see Sapnap get under Technoblade’s defenses, leaving a long cut on his forearm. It was impressive fighting, but there was a glint in those red eyes that warned Bad of what was going to happen a moment before it did. 

Technoblade feinted, Sapnap took the bait, and Techno’s blade slid cleanly across his leg. Sapnap stumbled, and Bad was running, running, trying to get there in time as the blade arched downwards towards his friend’s back. He knocked away the sword with his own only seconds before Sapnap was impaled. 

The dirt and fallen leaves were stained with blood. The cut on Sapnap’s leg was keeping him from walking, and he was slowly crawling out of the way. Bad pushed forward, trying to move Technoblade away from his friends. He caught a glimpse of Clay’s green eyes, bright with something not entirely human, as he twisted back to see what was happening from where he knelt. Those golden chains had not budged. 

A tremble of worry moved through him. 

Bad was a fighter. He was a hunter. He was also a scholar and a healer, and someone who could feel trees and lonely souls. But he was not a man made to fight a god. Even if Technoblade was limping and wounded, red eyes alight with anger and pain, Bad knew he did not stand much of a chance. Dream had been weakened by old wounds and a diminished home, and he’d been trying not to hurt them. But Technoblade was holding nothing back. He was here for blood. 

Dodging and deflecting the heavy blows, Bad felt cold certainty grip his chest. He couldn’t win. But he could buy them all some time. 

He dodged around a piece of broken masonry, making his way around the perimeter of the destroyed throne room, their swords drawing sparks where they scraped against the stone. Bad waited. And waited. 

And suddenly, he saw it, his moment, an opening. He ducked beneath the iron sword, which went whistling uncomfortably close to his head and feinted with his blade. Techno went to block a blow that never came. Bad dropped his sword and, with his left hand, he pulled free his stiletto and drove it deep into his opponent’s torso. 

******

Dream felt the chains around his wrists weaken.

*******

Techno gasped, coughing blood, and spirling backward. And then he was advancing on Bad, with the ferocious strength of a cornered animal, the same desperate strength that Dream had drawn upon when he had turned on them. Bad tried to pick up his sword, but Technoblade got there first, knocking him to the ground with a blow to the head. His glasses went flying somewhere into the underbrush, his face stinging. 

And then here was Technoblade. Before he had time to react, the spirit had a hand around his throat and was lifting him into the air. Bad felt his feet leave the ground. He couldn’t breathe. 

His mind started automatically ticking off the ten seconds of asphyxiation it took to reach unconsciousness. 

_1, 2…_

“You,” Technoblade growled, “are gettin’ on my last nerve.” 

_3…_

He could feel his legs kicking desperately, his hands clawing at the fist around his neck. 

_4, 5, 6…_

Bad’s head was spinning. He glanced back, catching a glimpse of Sapnap struggling to his feet, a hand braced against a stone, the other reached out toward him, eyes wide. 

_7..._

There was screaming, somewhere beyond the ringing in his ears. George and Sapnap’s voices. Calling his name.

_8…_

Would they be okay?

_9…._

His vision began to go dark. 

And there was a blur of green and gold and a diamond blade emerging from Technnoblade’s chest from behind, and disappearing as the pink-haired figure crumpled to the ground, dropping Bad, who fell on his side, gasping for air. 

He felt calloused a hand grasping his own and pulling him to his feet. 

It was Dream, his eyes alight, still beaten bloody, but grinning like a madman, the diamond sword in his hands. And behind him were Sapnap and George, limping to his side, their arms around each other. 

*********

Technoblade was spluttering, hands braced against the ground. Bad’s dagger was still buried in his side. The sword Dream had put through his back had left behind an ugly wound that was weeping blood on the forest floor. 

Dream felt a brutal elation. He curled his fingers and watched vines wrap around the kneeling form, binding Technoblade into the dirt in nearly the same position he had been in only moments before. 

“You were right,” Dream said. “I’m one of the old ones. I’m not as strong as I used to be. But,” and glanced right and left, at Bad and Nick and George, bloodied and bruised and breathing hard, an intensity almost better than laughter on their faces. “I’m not alone anymore. So before you come back, remember that.” 

He pointed the diamond sword at Technoblade, nearly touching his chin, and, despite his shaking hands and the pain in his side and his chest and his head, gave his rival a cocky grin. “Or maybe I’ll just come for you first.” 

The spirit gave him a bark of pained laughter. “I look forward to it.” 

He vanished into a cloud of red mist, returning home, where he’d probably be spending the next couple months recovering-- both his wounds and his dignity.

But it barely mattered. 

Dream turned to them. George was bleeding through the bandage on his shoulder, Nick was leaning against a rock, clutching his leg, and there was a ring of red bruises forming around Bad’s neck.

They were smiling at him. 

“You came back,” he said, and collapsed into Bad’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed!!  
> Sadly, we are reaching the end of the story. I'm planning one more update, sometime next weekend, before it's finished. To mark the end of my first fanfic, I'd really like to do a Q&A, where I will answer questions about this story, my own writing process, me, or any random thing you're interested in. Leave a question in the comments (and let me know what you thought of the chapter :D )!
> 
> Thanks again for reading. Take some Technoblade fanart I painted while watching his stream (and not doing my homework) as a sign of my gratitude. https://tea-with-veth.tumblr.com/


	10. The Whole World Ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not the beginning of the end-- the end of the beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody! I hope you enjoy the chapter :) Thank you so much for the 500 kudos! I didn't think I'd ever reach this point, but thanks to you all, I did. POGCHAMP my dudes.

“George,” Bad said briskly, not looking up. “How’s your shoulder?” he was in the process of guiding Dream to a flat rock embedded in the ground and helping him lie down. 

“Hurts like-- It hurts.” That was an understatement. The adrenaline that had kept him lucid for the last few minutes was weaning off now that Technoblade was gone, leaving behind searing pain. 

Sapnap was in the midst of wrapping cotton bandaging around the cut on his leg. “I’ll look at it for you as soon as I’m done with this.” 

“You’re okay?”

The hunter nodded, motioning at the wound. “It didn’t go deep. I’ll just be limping for a bit.” 

They turned, looking at Bad and Clay, a few feet away. Clay’s face was ashy, and his breathing was uneven, his eyes staring a little blankly into the forest canopy. Sapnap leaned close to George’s ear. “Do we have any potions left?”

George shook his head. They’d used their last healing on him when he’d fallen off the cliff. There was nothing left. 

“Sapnap, start a fire, please. We need hot water, as soon as you can. I’m going to take off your coat and your shirt,” Bad was saying. “Okay, Dream?” 

Clay nodded, wincing as Bad slowly began pulling the sweater over his head. Sapnap began clearing out a circle of dirt and building a small campfire and slowly heating up the water in their canteens in tin cups. It wasn’t much, but none of them had the strength to make the journey to find a stream or return to the pond. 

As the water heated, Sapnap knelt beside George and inspected the hasty bandaging Bad had applied in the midst of the battle, before unwrapping it and helping George pull off his shirt. The blue cloth had been stained an ugly brown, and he frowned down at it, annoyed. “He stabbed me with my own arrow, that’s a whole new low.” 

“I’m not gonna argue with that.” Sapnap washed out the cut and wrapped it in fresh bandages, his hands rough and clumsy compared to Bad’s gentle touch. George tried to focus on something else, his eyes landing on Bad, who was washing his hands and threading his suture needle, bending down beside the still figure on the rock. 

Finally, Sapnap finished, and after a moment of hesitation, George scooted over to where Clay was lying, his face in a tight grimace, as Bad wove the ugly gash in the spirit’s side shut. It was hard not to stare at the raw, bleeding wound, the long twisted scar on his stomach, and--

“You’re _growing,”_ George said, startled. Sure enough, the right side of Clay’s body was covered in moss and little leaves, and there was ivy weaving in and out of his skin. “What the--”

“Language,” Bad mumbled preemptively, “Dream, how are you doing?”

“Are you almost done?” his eyes were screwed shut in pain. 

“No, sorry.” 

George hesitated, and then slipped his hand into Clay’s. The spirit started and turned to look, gripping him like a lifeline. 

“Oh. Hey,” he sounded shy, and George felt it too. There was something particularly awkward about meeting someone again after your last interaction was trying to murder one another.

“Why are you growing?” George asked, trying to distract him. 

Clay laughed a little, and then winced in pain, clutching at George’s hand so tightly it hurt. “I just do that. When I’m healing.” 

George suddenly remembered having shot his friend in the side with a crossbow bolt, in the same place that now sprouted plant life. 

“Look,” he said, not sure what the right words for a moment like this were. “I- I’m really sorry. We should have known. We should have figured out it was you. I’m sorry for, y’know, trying to stab you, and shoot you and--” 

“I’m sorry for dropping you off of a cliff,” Clay interrupted, and they dissolved into painful, breathless giggling. Bad shushed them, trying to make Clay lie still as he finished up the last few stitches. 

“It’s okay,” George said. “I forgive you.”

“Thank you,” Clay whispered, and he did not let go of George’s hand. 

**********

They stayed in the ruins that night, curled around the embers of their fire. Bad had given Sapnap and George stitches when he was done with Dream’s, had collapsed, exhausted, and not woken up for dinner. 

George lay down that night, nursing his aching shoulder, and then suddenly bolted upright. “The compass!” 

“Can’t this wait till morning?” Sapnap griped, rolling over.   
“You know it can’t, Sap, Technoblade had it with him! And now he’s gone!” 

There was a muffled stirring from the mossy bank where Dream had been sleeping, wrapped in his sweatshirt. “It’s in my coat pocket.”

_“What?”_

“A compass, right? With a red needle? He was using it to track me, so I picked his pocket while we were fighting.”

George lay back, completely in awe of their strange friend.

*********

Once they could hobble through the forest, they returned to the glade. 

The ruin that had once been Clay’s cottage had stopped smoking, and now lat in an ashy heap of broken stones, and blackened wood beams. 

A lump crawled up George’s throat. He hadn’t realized that, in a world where nothing had felt safe for a very long time, Clay’s little corner in the forest had been the one place where he’d been at peace. And now it was gone too.

Dream sat on the grass, arms wrapped around his knees, and cried. 

They hesitated and then crowded around him. He rested his face on Sapnap’s shoulder, leaning into Bad’s arms, while George reached for his hand again, waiting as he shook with silent sobs. 

*******

They shifted through the ruins for anything they could use. There was an iron pot, charred but functioning, and Bad threw together a soup of whatever scraps of food they had, while Sapnap and George set up makeshift tents. Dream watched them, leaning against a tree. 

The air still smelt of smoke, but also of cooking stew, and though, somewhere behind his eyes he saw the house go up in flames, Technoblade arriving on his doorstep, a sword in one hand and the compass in the other, he also saw George and Sapanp bickering and Bad laughing at them, and he felt peace. 

******** 

Dream could not fall asleep. The pain in his side was brutally intense, and without potions, there was nothing to be done. Even though his body, his not entirely human body, was already stitching itself together with greenery, Technoblade had almost killed him, and he could feel it. 

After several long hours, listening to the wind moving through the trees around them, and his own meandering thoughts, he gave up on getting any rest. Cautiously he sat up and was startled to see a dark shape by the dying fire, sitting with its legs stretched out. 

“Can’t sleep?” Sapnap’s voice came drifting through the darkness. “Me neither. C’mon, I’m making coffee.”

Moving over slowly, Dream stared at the small tin pot sitting on the fire. “I’ve never had coffee before.”

“Really?” It’s an import I guess. You couldn’t get it staying in the forest.” Sapnap began pouring rather sludgy-looking brown liquid into two cups. His face was lit faintly by the fire, ” How are you feeling Cla- Dream? Do you want me to call you Dream?”

“I guess Dream is my name. Clay is something I made up when I met you,” Dream admitted. “And yeah, everything hurts.” 

“Same. This fucking leg is killing me. I don’t know how those two do it.” he nodded at George and Bad, passed out peacefully on the forest floor. He passed a cup over, holding up a finger and producing a flask from his bag. “One second it’s not done yet. This is bedtime coffee.” he poured Dream a generous portion before adding what remained of the flask’s contents to his own cup. 

Dream gave it an experimental taste and wished he had his mask back. He needed it to disguise the expression of absolute horror and disgust he was sure Sapnap could see written across his face. The hunter only laughed. “It grows on you.”

“I’m not sure it will,” he gave it another taste, just to be polite, and then settled for using the cup as a handwarmer. 

They sat in silence, looking up at the night sky. 

The stars were brighter, Dream thought, when you hadn’t been sure you’d ever see them again.

“Nick,” he said, finally working up the courage, “I want-- I need to say sorry.” Before he could be interrupted, he rushed onwards. “You told me about how you needed the money. So you guys could finally get some peace. If I hadn’t--If it hadn’t been me--”

“Shut up,” Sapnap said, so roughly that it took Dream by surprise. “No. Don’t think about it like that. Don’t you even dare.” 

“I-” 

Sapnap set his cup a stone, and put his hands firmly on Dream shoulders, looking him in the eyes with glaring intensity. “I am so glad we found you. Or you found us. Or we came hunting for you, I guess. _Anyway,_ I wouldn’t have wanted this to happen any other way. Well, preferably less getting injured would have been nice--”

“Sap-”

“But, Dream, you’re worth a whole lot more than the money was. Honestly.”

It was like a pain he didn’t know he was feeling had evaporated, leaving him without words. Sapnap sat back, sipping at his coffee, smiling to himself. “You know,” he said finally. “What I said that night? The offer still stands. When we leave the forest, we want you to come with us.”

“We?”

“All of us. We talked about it.”

Dream hesitated. He thought about life outside the forest, something so vague and strange he couldn’t even imagine it. He wanted it. He wanted to see something more, to live a life beyond the trees and grass and sky. To stop being rooted to a single place, a moment of eternity, and be more. To be human. It was enormous and terrifying, and exciting. 

“I’d like that,” he told Sapnap, hands still clutched around the rapidly cooling coffee cup. 

“You said that last time too,” Sapnap reminded him. “But will you?”

He thought about life with his friends at his side and that felt real. It felt like a future. 

“Yes,” Dream whispered. “I will.” 

**************

“It’s funny,” George said, “when I came here, I didn’t like it at all. Now I really don’t want to leave.” 

They were packing up the camp in the glade. It was taking a long time, partly because they’d made a mess in the week and a half they’d spent there, and partly because Dream was still not supposed to be exerting himself, and as a result was currently napping, Sapnap was limping slowly around, and George still couldn’t use the one arm very well. 

“I’ll miss it too,” Bad agreed, trying to figure out how Sapnap had fit so many blankets into his pack, “this forest is a special place.”

George stopped washing out the iron pot, and stared up at the gold and red leaves of the autumn trees, bright against the sky’s perfect blue. Bad watched him, a smile on his face. This wasn’t the same hunted soldier he’d met in that dingy small-town bar, so many weeks ago. There was a new strength to him, a confidence and hopefulness. “What if we don’t leave? We don’t have to worry about the war or about other hunters, or anything really. We could just stay here forever.” 

He made it sound so nice. Bad thought about how peaceful life was here, not watching their backs, not wondering if someone was looking for him. Not fighting or fearing. It was almost possible to forget the ghosts of the past entirely, lost among the oversized trees. 

“We’d be happy,” he admitted. “Part of me would like it. But I don’t think running away from our problems is the right thing to do. It’s better if we face them now.” 

“Fun.” 

“I mean, it’s not a lesson I’ve really learned myself,” Bad admitted. “We’re all running from something, George.” 

“What about Clay-- I mean Dream?” George returned to his scrubbing with vengeance.

Bad grinned, taking the blankets that were just refusing to fit out of the pack and trying a new arrangement. “I think we’ve helped Dream with the thing he was running from.”

“If only solving all our problems was as easy as beating up a city spirit,” George joked, patting his injured shoulder with a wry grin. 

“If only. Sapnap, come here and do your blankets yourself!” 

Sapnap came over. “Bad, I’m wounded. You can’t just ask me to do chores.” 

“You’re ridiculous. I’m going to see if Dream needs help packing.” 

**************

They stayed up late that night, around a bonfire, toasting one another with the contents of the flask George kept in the bottom of his back. 

“Dude, how long has it been since you washed that thing?” Sapnap asked, sniffing his drink. 

George shrugged and passed a cup to Dream, who made a face. “I can’t believe you guys like this stuff.”

Bad laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s an acquired taste, you don’t have to drink it. Wait until you taste something with cider. It’s so much sweeter.” 

“I’ll take yours,” Sapnap offered, swiping the cup with his offhand. “Thanks, Dream.” 

The fire burned brightly, coloring their faces with red light, as they grinned at one another across the flames. Lifting up their cups, they offered toasts, each more ridiculous than the last. 

“To victory!” 

“Adventure!”

“Hot air balloons!”

“Pfff, what in the world, Sapnap?”

“To muffins!” 

“Hell yes!”

_“Language!”_

“The open road!”

“To money!” George said, grinning out of the corner of his mouth. 

“To us,” Bad said, raising his glass high in the air. “And to Dream.” 

“To--” Clay hesitated and looked around with shining eyes. He didn’t have a cup, but he spread out his arms to them. To Sapnap, and Bad and George, laughing around the fire. “To friends. Friends who come back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thank-yous and final notes can be found in the epilogue notes.


	11. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly don't know what to say. It's been 41 days of amazing. Thank you all so much.

Once upon a time, there were three hunters, a spirit in the city, and a spirit in the forest. 

Once upon a time, there were three friends who found a lonely King 

Once upon a time, there was a crisp autumn morning. The world was ablaze with the color and glory of the golden trees and bright with dew. 

And there were four figures standing on the edge of the woods, looking out at the road, which stretched away on both sides into the unknown. 

“What happens when you leave?” George asked. “To the forest, I mean?”

Bad took Dream’s hand. “And what happens to you?” 

“Will it hurt?” Sapnap said. “Will you suddenly turn, like, a million years old and shrivel up and die?” 

They laughed. 

Once upon a time, there was a king standing at the edge of the forest with a mended coat, a broken mask in his pocket, and a quiet smile that no fear in the world could shake. “I don’t know,” he told them. “But I’m ready to find out.” 

Once upon a time, Dream wasn’t alone any longer, and the world stretched out in front of him, enormous, full of hope, and fear and promise, enemies and adventure. 

And so the King left his fortress and his forest, his friends at his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, man! I can’t believe it’s over!   
> Before you go, let me tell you how much I appreciate you. I’ve been writing for a long time, but this is the first time I’ve published something. My bucket list includes several writing-related goals, two of which were “there is fanart of something I’ve written” and “I make someone’s day even a little bit better.” And I believe both of those things have happened.   
> Thank you to those people who left kudos, which made it easier for new people to discover the story. Thank you to you lovely people who left the sweetest comments for me to read, and theories, and took the time to let me know how much pain I’d caused them.   
> Thank you for sharing my story, and looking at my art, and for making me smile.   
> Thank you to the Minecraft Babes group chat, and my friends who advised encouraged me, and were my betas. Thanks to my new fanfic author friends, who have welcomed me into the community with open arms.   
> Check my Tumblr for the Q&A and information about what I’m doing next. Also, there is some art that will hopefully make up for all the angst I’ve been writing. Here is the link! https://tea-with-veth.tumblr.com/  
> It’s been a pleasure and an honor.   
> Teahound <3


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